Ecover... Where... There On The Stair

Our dishwasher is out of action. It's sitting in the garage feeling rather lonely. One day, when I've sorted out the conservatory/extension/outhouse, and it's become the laundry, and there's room in the kitchen, our dishwasher will be pressed into service once again. Until then – and at the Murphy rate of house improvement it may be some time – we are back to washing up by hand. Hard work, isn't it? Guess which washing up liquid we're using?

Ecover are probably the most famous of the "environmentally-friendly" manufacturers of household detergents. Among their products you will find: cream cleaners; multi-surface cleaners; washing powder; fabric conditioner; bathroom and toilet cleaners; dishwasher tablets. They've been making them since 1979. And they've been making them in the world's very first ecological factory. It's made largely from wood with a grass – yes, grass! – roof. They've even won a seal of approval from the United Nations, who added Ecover to their global roll of honour for outstanding environmental achievement. So, you can see, they're a sound company! If you want to find out more about them you can, at their open and honest home in cyberspace, www.ecover.com.

Easy enough to find on the supermarket shelves, the Ecover washing up liquid is packaged very prettily. Look for the almost opaque bottle with a lovely picture of a camomile leaf on it. Look on the shelf with the large sizes. Although they make it in both 500ml and 1 litre sizes, I've only ever seen the larger one in either Tesco or Sainsbury. It's plain but pretty, and in comparison to the garish offerings by the likes of Fairy, Persil and Morning Fresh, I think it looks rather sophisticated. Not that washing up is a particularly sophisticated activity, mind you. Ecover's packaging is 100% recyclable; made from polypropylene and polyethylene. Sadly, in the UK, plastic recycling is patchy to say the least, so your bottle may well end up as landfill anyway. Check out www.wastepoint.co.uk to find your nearest recycling site. Mine is miles away in Chard. Sigh.

What else is there to tell you about the soundness of this product? Ah yes. Fairy may well claim to be "kind to your hands" but I know, prone to eczema as I am, that I'd not use it without washing up gloves, for my hands would become dry and chapped very quickly. Not so with Ecover. Its lack of petrochemical ingredients and the addition of camomile and milk whey mean that I find I can wash up using Ecover with absolutely no ill effects whatsoever. Hurrah! If you suffer from sensitive skin or any form of dermatitis at all, you'll know what a huge advantage for Ecover this is.

One thing to remember when washing up with Ecover: you need only a tiny squirt of it to clean your dishes. The plant-based surfactants we spoke about earlier do not form lots and lots of suds, unlike their petrochemical counterparts. You won't have a frothing, foaming, bubbletastic bowl of washing-up water at all. It's quite a shock when you first begin to use it. Fear not though; these suds are merely cosmetic and you really don't need them at all. Your few Ecover bubbles will do the job of your zillions of Fairy bubbles equally well, I promise. Don't defeat the object of all this green-ness and use half a bottle of the stuff at a time!

There is little I find to criticise with Ecover. And what there is, I guess is largely out of their hands. I'd like to see the major supermarkets stock the 500ml bottle size, but they do not. I'd like to see them stock the lemon-fragranced product as it's suitable for vegans, but they do not. I'd like to see the supermarkets offer a service to refill the Ecover bottles, but they do not. I'd like to see this product available in the modern corner shop – the convenience stores such as Spar and Londis, but it rarely is. My local health food shop stocks all these items and will allow me to refill my bottle too. So I'm buying Ecover there from now on. And I'll be telling Tesco why, too. Bloody supermarkets. Oh well, at least they actually sell it.