Whatever Wednesday... The hug-a-frog edition

Whatever Wednesday is when we explore all the different ways that Whatever All-Purpose Cleaner can be used around the house. It is an amazingly versatile little workhorse and because it is so safe and friendly, the uses are endless. If you'd like to share the unique ways you use Whatever in your life, post a link in the comments or email me and tell me about it.

I live in an urban area and therefore gave very little thought about drain off. The water goes into the sewer, the sewer goes to the treatment plant, the water gets cleaned, the water goes out to the world. That is how my little naive brain saw the whole process. Environmental water pollution through drain off comes from those big, bad industrial farms. Not little old, well-meaning me innocently washing her van.  I certainly can't be responsible for all those poor, deformed amphibians. I live in the city! There are no amphibians around me!

Well, not only does my crystal clean treated water fantasy not pan out, but when I was out walking Humphrey I saw this:

That is on the lid of the sewer at the bottom of my street.  This is the sewer where all the run off from my hose and all the cleaner used to wash my van goes after it runs down my street. It goes, well...directly to the stream. Turns out virtually all street sewers do. In this case a rather large stream. You know, The Mississippi River.

ugh. poor little frogs.  I didn't have a bottle of the stuff I generally use to wash the van, so I can't tell how bad the damage is, but I'm thinking pretty darn bad. But, even if I use those so-called "Green" cleaners, I'm still hurting my little salamander friends. Remember this chart?

The Ethoxylates are the bad mamma jamma endocrine disruptors. Look at that list! Look at all the cleaners with Ethoxylates in them! How "Green" is that?!

Enter Whatever. I know I can safely use Whatever to clean all the grease and gunk off my van and still protect my little fishy friends because Whatever all-purpose cleaner was just approved to be used in professional cleaning kits being sent to clean up the Gulf Coast's most fragile ecosystems. And because there are no solvents in it, I don't even have to worry about the finish on the van. Not that I do. But one doesn't have to worry about it.

Really, to be extra eco-nice, you can just wet the car down and spray it on and wipe off with a microfiber cloth. That's the method for people who may wash their cars regularly. We are not such people. Behemoth, our van, has not been washed since...probably February. Maybe longer. And we went on a mud-ilicious camping trip a few weeks ago. I couldn't get a good shot to do the dirt justice. This was the best I could get:

(Pay no mind to the big dent in the driver's side door I may or may not have been responsible for when backing out of a parking spot at the local tavern. I wasn't even under the influence, it was just a very sneaky light pole.) I diluted some Whatever in a bucket of water and put the kids to work. Because it's safe for the kids, too!

Some didn't stay on task quite like I had hoped:

But, when all was said and done, Behemoth was looking pretty spiffy.

Didn't get the stupid dent out, though. And when we emptied the bucket, there were no worries about what was going directly to the stream.