Somehow my search for green cleaning supplies turned into a search for green cleaning services. Okay, I do know how—Sharon told me about Vida Verde. It’s a co-op of Brazilian women who make their own cleaning supplies. It was started because they were poorly paid at their cleaning services or, if they were self-employed, they were forced to buy client lists from more established cleaners—for hundreds of dollars!

Starting in July 2010, residents of Massachusetts and 14 other states won’t have to puzzle over which dish detergents are phosphate-free, because they all will be. The new law exempts detergents intended for commercial dishwashers (a bummer), but detergents for residential use will all contain less than 0.5% phosphates.

Jason was sick this weekend, and while he was shaking down the thermometer, it slipped out of his hand, flew across the room, and broke into a zillion pieces—or so I thought. It was actually four pieces of glass and a zillion tiny beads of mercury.

When we decided to switch to more environmentally friendly cleaning methods, I was worried that it would be a lot more work, but I’ve found it can actually be easier.

People can be very proud of their particular dishwashing methods, but the most-quoted study, from the University of Bonn, has shown that a full dishwasher load washed by hand takes an average of 27 gallons. Even the most efficient handwashers used 8 gallons of water. By comparison, an Energy Star–qualified dishwasher uses less than 5.8 gallons per load.