Happy Thursday — someone please tell me when January will end.

In the meantime, we’re back with more Hot Bones. Last week was all about how e-bikes may be the only thing to put a smile on your face when you’re commuting to work. Plus, Charlottesville’s new free $1,000 e-bike voucher program doesn’t hurt either.

Many thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts on how much more they’d spend beyond the cool grand: 50% of respondents said they’d spend another $500–$1,000 to invest in the right setup. That’ll get you a lot closer to this e-bike with a sidecar that might as well be a motorcycle.

This week we’re moving on to my favorite topic: cleaning supplies.

So G has two best friends, and all three of them would eat a french fry after it fell on the ground. It would never occur to them not to. That’s a good french fry, don’t waste it. And all three of their significant others have been put on this earth to balance out this insanity by washing, disinfecting, lysoling, mouthwashing, and vacuuming enough for the pair.

We’re the ones who put sticky notes on pasta jars to mark when they were opened, who wash socks after every use, and who have a deep dependence on hand sanitizer at social events.

Over the years, the six of us have had a lot of laughs about the two zones of cleanliness. But I’ve never felt more truly seen and connected than when G went on a trip with these two friends and they tried to sync their phones to the car’s bluetooth. For some reason it wasn’t pairing right and they were having to do that thing where you boot off someone else’s device.

There were the usual suspects: Ellie’s iPhone, Ellie’s iPhone (2), Rachel’s iPhone, yaddahyaddah. 

And then if you scrolled to the second page: Dan’s Slippery Germ Brick. 

Dan, my man! Never have I seen a stronger performance of spousal reversal. It’s really nice in those moments to find your people — to discover that others also shudder at how dirty these phones that we put up to our faces and take to the bathroom and type on while we eat really are. 

So as you might imagine, Dan and I use a lot of disinfectant wipes. Those slippery germ bricks won’t clean themselves. And if I didn’t work in climate communications right now, I’d still be living my best life swan diving into thousands of Clorox containers every day.

But there’s a problem.

It turns out that disinfectant wipes are pretty bad for 1) our health and 2) the planet. 

A few depressing stats: 

If you’re in a hospital or cleaning after hours at a preschool, you’ll want these chemicals. If you’re wiping off the kitchen counter after eating Thai food, you (fine, I) can likely dial it back.

And beyond the health risks, disinfectant wipes are also single-use, so they typically go straight to landfills. I couldn’t find any foolproof data on total wipes used last year, but just think about how many disinfectant wipes you used at the start of covid and then multiply that by the ~260 million adults in the US.

So me, Dan, and the rest of the germ abatement crew are going to need to find a more sustainable wipe solution, at the very least to stop poisoning our significant others.

A young couple searched their local Target and Whole Foods for a sustainable cleaning wipe that would get rid of dirt and grime without bleaching off their outer layer of skin. Here’s what they found.

Another Hot Bones experiment! This time à la NY Times real estate game. 

No matter if you use 1 or 100 disinfectant wipes per day, it helps to know there are more sustainable, healthier options out there. So I’ll give you the details on 3 brands I tried out, and then it’s up to you to figure out what we’ve stuck with.

Minimalist branding and a santal scent won over G without even trying. And what girlie can’t resist a $29 upsell on a sea foam reusable dispenser. These wipes are 100% plant-based and biodegradable — although keep in mind if you’re cleaning up human/creature fluids you’re not going to want to put these in the ole composter afterward.

Tested on: That Thai food all over our kitchen counters.

💰 Price: 60 wipes for $6.79

👍 Pros: Gentle formula with a vegetable-based soap. No microplastics. Will make your under-sink cabinet smell amazing.

👎 Cons: Thin fabric made my hands feel closer than preferred to the things I wanted to clean up.

Pick these up while you’re getting fancy sourdough at Whole Foods and don’t look back. These are close in price to the disinfectant Lysol wipes at Wegmans, but with an EPA Safer Choice Certified formula instead of a bleach blast. Seventh Gen is a B Certified company that’s been committed to product transparency for 30+ years.

Tested on: Our bathroom vanity — with enough left over to also pick up the one million long blond hairs on the floor.

💰 Price: 70 wipes for $8.58 (but $5.99 at Target)

👍 Pros: Does not contain any synthetic fragrances, dyes, or harsh chemicals. Wipes feel substantial and don’t bunch up when you’re trying to clean a whole counter in one go.

👎 Cons: Sometimes a small, irrational part of my brain worries that because they’re good for the earth, they won’t be as effective at cleaning. Obviously that’s not true.

Shoutout to Target for putting together its own in-house sustainability line (including our go-to paper towels and TP) that don’t come with a “green premium tax.” Everspring’s cleaning wipes are also USDA certified biobased products, which means they come from plants instead of derived from petroleum.

Tested on: Our stove backdrop after pasta night.

💰 Price: 35 wipes for $2.99 

👍 Pros: Lots of fabric to work with, not dealing with any extraneous ridge or aeration some brands seem to think customers want.

👎 Cons: Could go with either the lemon scent or the mint scent, but not both at once.

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