Seventh Generation scientists continuously research new technologies and ingredients in an ongoing quest to bring our consumers the safest, most environmentally responsible and effective products they can design. This year: we introduced some ground-breaking new products; improved our diapers and wipes; made technical progress on a number of fronts; instituted an upgraded testing protocol; and struggled with ongoing challenges such as formulating 1,4-dioxane-free dish and laundry liquids.

New Products

Our consumer-centric approach to product development means that we try to understand our consumers’ needs and design products that serve those needs. Consumers have been telling us for years that they don’t think it makes much sense to wash their clothes with our natural laundry detergent and then use a conventional dryer sheet or to use our auto dish detergent followed by a conventional rinse aid. In response, we launched our Fabric Softener Sheets and our Rinse Aid in 2008. Consumer input also helped us improve the design of our diaper tabs. Loyal consumers concerned about minimizing packaging have been asking for large-size laundry detergent; we responded with our 150 oz. version. We also introduced more sizes and fragrances for several of our products.

Auto Dish Pacs: Our chlorine and phosphate free auto dish pacs provide 20 grams of pre-measured detergent that go in a dishwasher’s dispenser. The detergent is concentrated, eliminating the filler ingredients common in many powdered detergents. The water-soluble, biodegradable, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) pouch dissolves immediately allowing the cleaning powder to work its magic.

Fabric Softener Sheets: These chlorine-free, unbleached, brown paper sheets are made with plant-based softeners and can be recycled or tossed in the compost after use. Conventional dryer sheets are often made from petroleum-derived material and can contain animal-derived tallow ingredients.

Rinse Aid: Our biodegradable formula is made with plant-based materials and is free of the volatile alcohols, synthetic ingredients, and zinc found in most other rinse aids.

Product Improvements

All cleaning products will be free of added formaldehyde in 2009. Many of our cleaning products suppress bacteria and mold growth through the use of a synthetic preservative that releases a small amount of formaldehyde. While the levels are so low they do not endanger your health, this preservative is not consistent with our goal of producing natural products completely free of potentially harmful trace materials. Our product scientists successfully tested an alternative preservative that is safe and effective even when used in significantly reduced amounts and we hope to introduce the improved formulations in 2009.

Why can’t we say, “formaldehyde-free?” Because formaldehyde occurs naturally in the environment (it occurs in living things), so it can be detected at some level with advanced technology.

Improved the lotion in our baby wipes. We replaced an ethoxylated surfactant with a natural material based on cellulose (from plant fibers).

Developed softer bath tissue. Working with our paper manufacturing partner, we improved the softness of our bathroom tissue while maintaining 100% recycled content, minimum 80% post-consumer.

Eliminated synthetic fragrance in green apple dish gel. When we created a suite of whole essential oil-based scents in 2007, we were not able to replace the synthetic green apple fragrance in our dish gel as the high pH caused the natural oils we tested to degrade. We partnered with a scent supplier to develop a 100% natural grapefruit fragrance that is both aesthetically pleasing and stable at a high pH. We then discovered the presence of low levels of phthalates in our green apple fragrance through our upgraded testing program. Within weeks, we were able to replace this product with our new natural grapefruit scent dish gel.

The phthalate found in our green apple dish gel was diethylphthalate, or DEP. It is not a suspected carcinogen or endocrine disruptor like other phthalates and there was no health risk to those consumers using this product since 2004. Spurred by this experience, we established a cross-departmental Transparency Principles Team to facilitate company discussions to ensure our commitment to transparency is met and communicated in the most purposeful and responsible way.

Upgraded Authenticity Testing

Our scientists are keenly focused on ongoing product improvement and continuously research new ingredients and technologies. We use a number of independent research laboratories to ensure unbiased feedback for analyses of both efficacy and product chemistry. Product Analyst Kay Gebhardt explains, “Authenticity and performance work is completed at the time of formulation and includes irritancy, stability, performance and preservative challenge testing, as well as verification of label claims such as non-toxic, biodegradable, and phosphate or chlorine-free.”

In 2008, we established a more comprehensive set of protocols for product testing. We tested all our products — both new and old — for 164 different chemicals including 1,4-dioxane, phthalates, metals, chlorine, formaldehyde, tributyl tin, phosphates and pesticides. New products will be tested for these chemicals upon formulation; all other products will be tested annually.

The results? For the most part, the findings, such as that no pesticide residues were detected in our scents, confirmed that the high expectations we have for our suppliers and manufacturing partners are justified. But, there were a few notable disappointments such as our finding of phthalates in our green apple dish gel (discussed above) and 1,4-dioxane in our fabric softener (see below).

Challenges Remain

1,4-dioxane — ongoing: We modify the natural oils in our cleaning products first with ethylene oxide, a petrochemical that allows the plant-based oils to work as surfactants, and then with sulfur trioxide. During this process, 1,4-dioxane, a possible human carcinogen, can be formed. Consistent with our core mission to provide safe products, we have worked with surfactant manufacturers for many years to vacuum strip the 1,4-dioxane to minute levels (less than 5 ppm compared to levels of 20–100 ppm in common raw materials) while we searched for an alternative. The Organic Consumer’s Association (OCA) detected this byproduct in our dish liquid and in 47 other organic and natural consumer products in March, 2008 and called us and the other manufacturers to task on this. See Jeffrey Hollender’s discussion of this issue in his CEO Letter in the 2007 CC Report at go/2007cc.

Throughout 2008, our researchers focused their work on moving away from technologies that promote the formation of 1,4-dioxane. In early 2009, they found an effective formulation for our dish liquid. To confirm our own testing, we submitted the new dish liquid to the OCA for evaluation and, as we expected, no 1,4-dioxane was detected. Our scientists then succeeded in reformulating our laundry liquid and we expect both of these improved products to be on the shelves in 2009.

Due to our own product testing in 2008, we also discovered we had low levels of 1,4-dioxane in our fabric softener. We are on track to introduce an improved formulation in 2009.

Synthetic ingredient in automatic dishwashing powder and gel: One of our ongoing objectives has been to replace the non-biodegradable synthetic polymer in our auto dish powder and gel. Despite technical progress, we were not ready to produce a revised formulation in 2008 and this issue remains one of our top research priorities.

DEHP in plant essential oils: Testing detected small amounts of di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) in our undiluted essential oil blends prior to their use in our formulations. Testing with precise analytical methods failed to detect DEHP in any of our scented products where the essential oils are present in very low concentrations. DEHP is a common plasticizer found in PVC pipes and it appears to be present as a result of the piping and equipment used in processing. Our supplier partners are developing mitigation strategies to address this.

Product Director Louis Chapdelaine talks about the sustainability of our wipes:

Consistent with our commitment to design products with the next seven generations in mind, we have been working to replace the synthetic polyester and rayon blend substrate in our wipes with a more sustainable alternative. But we didn’t want to rush into a decision without understanding how each potential variation could affect the overall sustainability of our product. Our sustainability partners Pure Strategies painted us a picture of what we have today and how making different changes would move the needle for factors like energy, water use, toxicity, end-of-life, and human health. This life cycle analysis confirmed that the use of polyester in our substrate reduces the sustainability of our wipes and a move toward materials derived from renewable resources makes sense. The more surprising finding was that the impact of the packaging, the tub in particular, was more significant than we realized. Now that we understand the impact of each change, we are planning to have our improved wipes on the shelf in early 2010.

re: 1,4-dioxane

"I have used your products for years and love them and what your company stands for, however I am very, very concerned that the Natural Dish Liquid free and clear I am using had 1,4-dioxane in it. Especially when the bottle says non‑toxic on it. Please let me know how you will eliminate this from the product as I will now have to stop using it and return all my bottles of it and wait until you can correct this dangerous problem. Thanks for help with this serious concern to me." Dace