Color-Coded Eco-Rating System For Household Cleaners Debuts At Whole Foods

Whole Foods Market has introduced a tiered, color-coded rating system for household cleaning products to help shoppers make eco-friendly choices. The Eco-Scale System rates household cleaners as red (unacceptable), orange, yellow or green according to specific environmental and sourcing standards applied to each product. The company said it will work  with vendors to evaluate every product in its cleaning category. Products will have to meet a new baseline orange standard by Earth Day 2012 to be sold in Whole Foods stores. Products rated red will not be sold, the company said. Though the federal government does not require ingredients to be disclosed on household cleaner labels, the new rating system does.