This also doesn't seem like just soap - it has pyrethrins, which you may or may not consider eco-friendly.

The Federal Trade Commission has guidelines about green labeling claims, but they mostly specify what you have to mean when you say 'biodegradable' 'recyled material' and a few other claims. As far as I know, they haven't been clear about what products get to be called 'green' or 'eco' or even 'natural'.

That said, since this is a pesticide, the label was reviewed by the EPA, which has very different regulations (not just guidelines) than the FTC. Language is carefully controlled and this specific label had to be approved. Someone slipped up on this. Or Scott is running an un-approved label (which is possible).

The bottom line is this: Don't let the packaging or labeling fool you on any 'eco' product. Same thing goes for food and cosmetics. You can be a eco-smart consumer. Look at the ingredients. Research the ingredients. Is the bottle recyclable or re-usable? Does the company that makes the product have a sustainability plan?

http://joblessgenevieve.blogspot.com/

*** The ecosense label is in regards to the plastic of the packaging as it uses 15% less plastic than the prior container. ***

There's no laws about what can be labeled green or ecofriendly ... 15% less plastic helps not hurts but it's borderline.

or if green for you means "do no arm to plants" ... well i have never come across a product that would have been made deliberately to kill insects and the plants under the insects

Eco-friendly doesn't mean it has no impact on the environment, it means it has minimal impact. Ladybugs kill insects, and they're eco-friendly. Diatomaceous earth kills insects, and it's eco-friendly. BT kills caterpillars, and only caterpillars. It is eco-friendly. Squishing aphids with your fingers kills aphids, but it's eco-friendly. Pulling weeds that are hosts to pest insects kills both plants and insects, but it's still an eco-friendly practice.

On the other hand, if you spray something like ortho or carbaryl on your roses, it will kill the aphids. It'll also kill any bees that come wandering by in the next couple days. If you spill some and it gets into the storm drains or water table, it's a mess. That's not a minimal impact.

This stuff, you can spray it on your vegetables or flowers or berries or fruit, and then harvest and eat them.

@witeowl: Actually, neither of you are thinking enough. All "insecticide" means is that it kills bugs - it doesn't mean it's necessarily a toxic chemical. The stuff is dishsoap and water, and is actually used in organic gardening. It's not dangerous at all.

@witeowl: What smiling1809 said, plus insecticidal soap doesn't encourage things like pesticide resistance in insects. And it doesn't harm beneficial insects like ladybugs or bumblebees.

@mythago: Actually, I believe that was added to pacify the cow hormone industry.

@witeowl: It's dishsoap and water. If you consider dishsoap or body soap to be environmentally unfriendly and dangerous, then I guess for you, it would be bad. Just b/c it kills aphids, doesn't mean it's a toxic or poisonous to US. Drinking soapy water might give us a bad case of the runs, but not much more.

@StarkRavingMan:
It would appear that many of the commenters are a little naive as to the relation that disclaimers have to reality; this isn't a greenwashed product.

@acasto:

Well, I buy into it--it's just soapy water; it *is* an eco-friendly bug defense. The disclaimer is almost certainly there for legal reasons.

By definition, insecticide cannot be eco-friendly.

@diasdiem: Being eco-friendly doesn't mean you're a hippie who wants to let everything live - you have to acknowledge that when ecologies are off balance, they have to be rectified. We kill non native species precisely because they would wreak havoc on our native species. We kill certain animals during certain times because it balances the population. In this respect, we merely try to be as least damaging as possible. Sometimes we fail.

Well, I'm sheepish. Of course, I was never put on lawn duty at my parents' house when I was a kid, and now I live in an apartment, so I have no such experience with bug killing tactics.

Consumers, this is an excellent product. It's a bit overpriced (it's just soap, after all) but it is effective and safe.

the master brand Ortho is topmost, then the sub-brand ecosense. the massive footnote isn't anything required, just a disclaimer.

Trouble is, they found out later that spent Tungsten shells cause cancer.

Feh, you take the good with the bad. ;-)

[gizmodo.com]

@ecwis: They don't, you notice, break out the "other ingredients,"

@goodfellow_puck: Well, yes, that too.

@ecwis: Agreed. it's likely the company did this as a lawsuit shield.

Insecticidal soaps work well on soft-bodied insects like aphids. The soap breaks their waterproof coating like it breaks the bond between grease and your frying pan. They dehydrate and die. I use my hose-end spayer full of dish soap and set it for a fairly heavy concentration. I spray down my fruit trees and roses starting in mid Spring and every few weeks until the fruit is ripe.

Diatomaceous earth does a number on hard-shelled insects like ants and such. It abrades holes in their exoskeletons and they dehydrate and die. You do have to be a bit careful because it will abrade your lungs too.

@pecan 3.14159265: No... you spray it on your garden plants to kill insects without, presumably, poisoning yourself. 20 years ago, you made this stuff yourself with about five percent soap in water.

The small print says that the active ingredient is plain old soap. That's exactly what "potassium salts of fatty acids" is. (You can also have "sodium salts of fatty acids" which is basically the same thing, just soap.) The sodium kind is usually the bar soap, and the potassium kind is usually the liquid soap. It's nothing but a fancy way of saying "waste fat from meat processing, plus either sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide lye solution".

My best guess is they aren't willing to certify that the commercial-production-reject soaps they buy are eco-friendly. The "other ingredients" likely include random residual perfume and coloring agents, depending on what soap waste they bought for that run.