Believe it or not, clean doesn’t always mean green. Lots of cleaning products aren’t just harsh on grease and grime, they also make things hard for fish, animals and even people!

Most of the spray bottles and cans under your kitchen sink have skulls, crossbones, and other warnings on them for a reason. Many of them are poisonous! They can contain harmful ingredients like lye, ammonia, bleach, alcohol and formaldehyde (yep, that one’s as nasty as it sounds).

Some of the chemicals in cleaners have been linked to terrible diseases like cancer, as well as liver and kidney damage.

Cleaners sometimes make their way into the lakes, rivers and oceans that fish and other animals call home. These chemicals can build up in their bodies and cause weird side effects in fish, like spontaneous changes in sex. They could even kill them! It’s not just water animals that suffer though.

Some cleaning products contain heavy metals like iron and manganese. In small doses, these elements can be good for healthy growth in animals, but in large doses they can cause, big problems for birds such as American Kestrels like Maverick and Bald Eagles like Koho.

So think twice before you or your family send those scrubbing bubbles down the drain, especially when it’s so easy to make your own green and animal-friendly cleaning ingredients!

We've got recipes for some awesome Green Grimebuster cleaners... check 'em out on the Boards!