Making the Switch to Eco Friendly Products With the Help of Duane Reade

I was reading through my twitter stream the other day and this tweet caught my eye:

Stocking up on supplies @DuaneReade Don’t forget to pick up the Duane Reader for what’s hot & on sale! #DReade #CBias

— cbLifestyle (@cbLifestyle) April 20, 2012

As you all know, I am a  big fan of Duane Reade and am also a Duane Reade VIP blogger.  I also love the Duane Reader.  The Duane Reader is Duane Reade’s ultra chic circular that looks like a magazine.  I first discovered it back in December when my family and I stopped at Duane Reade after seeing the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.  The issue I saw back them was their holiday special issue.  They’ve finally come up with a new edition for spring and I couldn’t wait to read it!

I headed over to Duane Reade’s site and lo and behold, they were offering a sneak preview right on their site. I clicked through and was taken to a box asking me to enter my zip code, which I did.  I was then taken to a page which featured all of their current circulars. 

I clicked on the Duane Reader and at last was taken to the first page of the Duane Reader.

I dove right in, and like the previous edition I had read, this edition was packed with lots of great info and highlighted some great products as well as some great deals.  Wanna see it for yourself?  You can access the online version of the Duane Reader here.  One article that caught my eye was the one on going green.

Since earth day was rapidly approaching, I really wanted to do something to show my commitment to do more to help our planet.  We already changed all the bulbs in our home to compact fluorescent bulbs, and in fact recently started upgrading to LED bulbs which last a lot longer than the CFL bulbs.

One thing I haven’t been consistent with though is using eco-friendly cleaning products. I have bought them sporadically in the past, but never really stuck with it.  The biggest reason is cost.  In my experience, a lot of the eco-friendly products out there are quite pricey.  So I was surprised to see that the Apt. 5 goes green products listed for $2.99 – $3.99.  Sounded pretty affordable to me, so I decided to head out to Duane Reade to check it out.

The Duane Reade store I went to in Staten Island (yes, although I live in New Jersey, this store is the closest) had tons of cleaning products in stock, but I was only really interested in seeing the eco-friendly products.

I found one of the Apt 5 cleaning products, mixed in among some of the other cleaning products.  I was kind of hoping that they would have had the whole Apt. 5 cleaning line arranged together, but they didn’t.  I kind of had to look around to find all of the the different varieties, but I eventually did find them all.

I was very impressed with their selection of eco-friendly products.  They had quite a few to choose from.

I even found Vaska products there. Vaska is my favorite brand of eco-friendly laundry products.  Their products work very well and don’t have a whole list of scary ingredients.  Duane Reade is one of the few places that carries it locally.

I browsed around a little and decided to purchase these eco-friendly products:

• Apt. 5 Bathroom Cleaner – it has a great fresh mint scent.
• Apt 5^TM GG Bamboo Cutting Boards – I love the durability of bamboo.
• Method squirt + mop wood floor cleaner – it cleans my bamboo floors really well and has a heavenly almond scent.
• Vaska perfect lavender laundry detergent – it cleans our clothes very well and leaves them with a nice subtle lavender scent.
• Vaska exceptional lavender fabric softener – it leaves the clothes feeling very soft, not coated and the lavender scent is really nice.

Not only are these products good for the environment, using these products can even be beneficial to our health.

The most obvious advantage of green cleaning products is of course having positive or minimal negative effects to the environment. In order for a product to be considered green, it must not contain any trace of chemicals that lead to ozone depletion. Most are water soluble and have almost no effect on aquatic life. Those that are not water soluble are easily biodegraded. Even the packaging is usually made of both recycled and recyclable material.

In addition, there have been studies conducted about the effects of cleaning products to the people who stay in places where these products are used. Most of these studies were conducted on classrooms. The results are pretty scary.

The results show that the use of conventional cleaning products have a direct effect on the occurrence of asthma. This data has been interpreted to mean that non-green cleaning products tend to cause asthma. Rooms that are usually cleaned with eco friendly cleaning products tend to have lesser occurrences of asthma cases. This is because these products do not contain asthmagens and asthma triggers.

Indirectly, green products are also known to reduce the risk for asthma because the volatile chemical content of such are limited significantly. These volatile chemicals contribute to the creation of smog that also causes or increases the risk for the occurrence of asthma.

Additionally, eco friendly cleaning products help make the act of cleaning safer and since a lot of these products have really nice natural scents, they also make cleaning a lot more pleasant. With so many benefits one can get by using eco friendly products, it makes sense for m to make the switch.  Knowing that I can get reasonably priced green products at Duane Reade will help me stick to my commitment.

Be sure to check out all the photos of my Duane Reade shopping expedition over on Google +. Also, please be sure to check out Duane Reade on Facebook and Twitter, too.

Disclosure: This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias #CBias #DReade #DReadeVIP  All opinions are 100% my own.

So have you tried using any eco friendly products?  Which ones?