Each year, the French spend an average of 6 billion euros on cleaning products and nearly 400 references are offered to them in hypermarkets. How to choose from this plethoric offer? This is what Sandrine Leleu sets out to dissect in this didactic documentary. At the end of the 1950s, Herbert Sinner, a German chemist, theorized the principle of the circle of cleanliness – known today as the circle of Sinner. According to him, cleaning revolves around four actions: mechanical action (rubbing), chemical (degreasing or stain-removing solution), thermal (hot water) and action of time (duration during which the product acts).
Difficult to make a distinction in terms of health and environmental toxicity
The project of the industrialists at the time was simple: to reduce the mechanical action and that of time by increasing the share of chemistry, with the aim of making life easier for housewives. This logic has led to the manufacture of ultra-efficient but dangerous cleaners. Endocrine disruptors, allergenic or irritating substances… Some of the products we use daily are full of harmful ingredients. The Covid-19 pandemic has complicated the matter. For fear of the virus, the French have rushed to cleansers of a new kind: virucides, which also eliminate microbes and fungi. Manufacturers having no obligation to detail the chemical composition of their products, it is difficult for the consumer to make a distinction in terms of toxicity for health and for the environment.
Emmanuel Chevallier, chemical engineer at the National Consumer Institute, is campaigning for the creation of a classification based on the Nutri-Score model (five-level labeling system, from A to E and from green to red) , which would allow you to make an informed choice. For the time being, the simplest thing is to favor ecological products certified Ecocert or Eco-label, two reliable labels subject to precise specifications. Or to return to the black soap dear to our grandmothers.
Tuesday February 7 at 9 p.m. on France 5. Documentary by Sandrine Leleu (2023). 52 min (Available in replay on france.tv).
