What do you use to clean your house? Windex? Bleach? Have you ever considered using some orange peel for that? We would assume the answer is no. But you actually can! When fruits and vegetables decompose, they emit ingredients that can be found in cleaning supplies. A company named Veles is taking sustainability to a whole new level with eco-friendly cleaning products that are made from food waste.
How does it work?
Based in New York, Veles partnered with numerous food collectors around Manhatten and had them bringing food waste that will help them produce their eco-friendly cleaning spray. This means that the product is completely decomposable! 97 percent of this new cleaning product is made of food waste, and the remaining 3% are natural fragrances, so your house will smell as clean as it looks. The food waste used for making each bottle of cleaning spray releases active ingredients such as acetic vinegar, lactic acid, alcohol, and water. The fragrance used is sustainably sourced as well, so you can literally use repurposed garbage to clean up your house. How crazy is that?
Other than the obvious benefit of using food waste as a cleaning agent, this product has an even bigger global potential. You see, when food waste ends up in landfills and starts to decompose, it releases CH4 into the atmosphere. CH4 is also known as methane gas. It is a greenhouse gas that can be harmful in large quantities. The more food waste Veles uses, the less of this gas is released into the atmosphere.
How much?
Other than the cleaning solution Veles uses, it has put a lot of thought into the package. In fact, the spray bottle they use is made from US-sourced recyclable aluminum. Now, that kind of product does not come cheap at first but it is affordable in the long run. A single bottle costs $16, but after that, you can get refills for half the price.