That's Not Cow Poop - It's Biogas!

This is a topic near to my heart and my home, because Skagit Valley is one of the few places in the country with a working cow poop electricity plant.  The manure digester went online last September, and has been merrily accepting deposits of cow manure and pumping out electricity ever since.

Of all the ways to deal with cow poop, turning it into electricity is certainly the most delightful.  The manure digester here in Rexville is set up to allow deliveries from anyone who wants to bring a load of manure, which is great.  Skagit Valley is home to a lot of small family-owned dairy farms and free-range beef cattle farms.  They all have to do something with their poop!

Cattle waste is a serious problem, in America more than many other countries.  We have so many cows!  Between the thriving beef and dairy industries, Wikipedia says there are "1.3 billion cattle in the world today," almost 10% of which live in America.  

A bigger problem in America comes from the way we keep our cattle.  Concentrated feeding operations (CAFO) concentrate the poop, too, and are a huge contributor to both greenhouse gases and groundwater pollution.  Big industrial dairy farms are just as bad.  Most use a "manure lagoon," which is just as vast - and gross -as you would think.

Now, instead of just letting it decompose naturally, we may be able to capture the methane and use it in large scale electricity production.  It will never match the output of solar, wind, or hydroelectric power plants - but it will use all that cow poop, which is basically free for the taking!

Capitalizing on the success of the manure digester, the New York Times is outlining a plan by which high tech companies like Google and Microsoft could run their server farms off in-house cow poop power plants.  One genius part of this plan is that servers produce a lot of heat (most of the electricity demands of a server farm come in the form of AC units cooling the racks of servers), and manure digesters need heat to run properly.

The director of HP's "sustainable information technology laboratory" released a report which suggested that the future of server farms could be in the hands of America's dairy farmers.  Dairy farmers could lease land to network operations centers (NOCs), the NOCs could be powered by mini-manure digesters, which are fueled by the dairy cattle.

I imagine the NOC staff could also strike up a pretty good deal on cheese and other dairy products!  But that's beside the point.

As the website of the Skagit Valley manure digester's company (Farm Power) points out, another benefit to cow poop power is that it doesn't divert food into the power system.  Last summer saw a sharp increase in the price of basic staples like wheat and soy, partly because of the rise in popularity of biofuels.  Biodiesel made from corn sounds like a great idea on the face of it, but not if it's taking food out of people's mouths!

Luckily, no one will miss the cow poop.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user susieblackmon

The Real "Overpopulation Taboo"

The most recent issue of Mother Jones magazine, ostensibly devoted to "the overpopulation taboo," shows a surprising lack of self-awareness.  Even the main editorial points out that "the average American's carbon footprint is 23 times bigger than that of the average Indian" but then goes back to the topic of the average Indian.

Sigh.

The flagship article, "The Last Taboo" by Julia Whitty, is downright cringe-worthy.  The entire first section of the article casts all of India as a teeming "other," referring to the crowds with alienating terms like "the flood."  

Seeming to sense that this is a grossly inappropriate and fear-mongering take on the subject, the author takes great pains to point out that her own family hails from Calcutta.  So it's, you know, okay for her to be grossly inappropriate and fear-mongering.  She has earned that right.  

Personally, I never bought into that line of reasoning.  Just because I have the right to call someone a "big fat cow" that doesn't make it right for me to do so.  And starting off an article about global overpopulation by describing the desperate poverty of Calcutta's vast slums is… not a good move.

Actually, any discussion about global overpopulation that veers towards The Topic Of India is probably off on the wrong foot.  After all, the ecological footprint of each American is bigger than that of anyone else in the world.  Each American consumes five times as much of Earth's ecological resources as anyone else on the planet.  

I know it's difficult to understand that we consume more than our share of the planet.  I know it's unpopular to suggest that maybe if we kept it to, say, one car per person, the planet might be a nicer place to live.  (There are more cars registered in America than there are Americans.)  

If it's true that "a vegetarian in a Hummer has a smaller carbon footprint than a meat-eater in a Prius," then what must be true for an American who never has children?  I bet a childless American flying across the country in an empty airplane has a lower carbon footprint than either the vegetarian or the meat-eater.  By not having children you reduce both your own carbon footprint, and that of your non-progeny.  

The long-term positive consequences for the planet are astounding, if you ripple the calculations forward through the imaginary non-generations.  According to a scientist at Oregon State University, two American children are the equivalent (carbon footprint-wise) of 337 Bangladeshi children.  Each American baby costs its parents 20 times as much carbon as any American could possibly save, using all the choices in the world.

I would almost say that any zero population growth program that focuses on any country but the United States is barking up the wrong tree.  Despite which, the author's own article starts out by talking about all the darned people in India, and how poor they are.  I realize that it's more "impactful" to tour the slums of Calcutta than the playgrounds of the American suburbs, but it's also shamefully beside the point.

Even though the author touches on all of these points, the article is still focused on other countries, their failures and successes, the topic of microloans, and so forth.  All things that Other People should be doing, in other words.

What about us?  On that question, Mother Jones offers nothing but a ringing silence, and perhaps an embarrassed shuffling of feet.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Mr. T in DC

McDonald's In Britain Is All Organic And Stuff!

Did you know this?  I didn't know this!  This is the second time I've run headlong into the fact that the United Kingdom is a lot better about advocating for better quality food than we are here in the United States.  

The Daily Mail has a typically tawdry article about the source of McDonald's chicken in Britain.  The author is all up in arms about how it comes from massive factory farms in South America.  Which I agree is a bad thing.  

But when I was reading, if it had been a movie trailer, there would have been a "record scratch" sound effect when I read "The beef they use is sourced entirely from British and Irish farms, the eggs free-range, the milk organic and the coffee beans Rainforest Alliance-certified."

Say what!

Now I don't have a television, and there aren't any McDonald's ads on Hulu.  (More's the pity, since Hulu could definitely use the cash, but I digress.)  So I thought, maybe I've missed something.  Maybe this is true for the US McDonaldses as well.  Maybe there has been a massive ad campaign that I have been fortunate enough to have avoided completely.  It wouldn't be the first time!

When I hit the McDonalds website, it identified me as an American automatically. I was directed to a page which was dominated by an ad for the Angus Third Pounder cheeseburger.  "OPEN REALLY WIDE," the site said.  Which only cemented my suspicion that in the UK they want decent food, whereas in the US we just want big cheap food.

Gross.

Unfortunately when I tried to dig father and follow links to "Your Questions Answered" or "Meet Our Suppliers," the website was down and all I got was 503 error pages.  It's hard not to read a conspiracy into that, but I shall do my best.

I did learn that the board of directors recently scuttled a proposal by the Humane Society that McDonalds obtain 5% of its eggs from cage-free farms.  Although McDonalds has "committed to going 100 percent cage-free by the end of 2010 for all its European operations," that will not be the case here in the States, where 100% of their eggs are - and will continue to be - from battery cages.

A similar story with their coffee.  Although McDonalds uses only Rainforest Alliance-certified coffee in the UK and Australia, that is not the case here in America.  They just use regular old coffee, even though their suppliers do carry Rainforest Alliance-certified beans.

And the meat, as anyone who's read "Fast Food Nation" knows, is pretty much the worst of the worst, ethically speaking.

So how come they're so awesome everywhere else?  Because consumers in those countries demanded it.  The Daily Mail mentions that McDonalds only went free-range/organic/fair trade in order to combat slumping sales.  

The lesson here is clear: if you care about your health, and the health of the planet, vote with your dollars!  It really does work, as UK McDonalds customers can attest.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Farm Sanctuary

Reuse It: Facial Tissue Boxes

After you’re finished with a box of facial tissues, you likely recycle it, right? I bet you didn’t know that facial tissue boxes have a plethora of different uses once they’re out of tissues! Here are some things you might want to do with that box before you throw it away.

First, cut off the top—the part with the plastic, where the tissues come out. You can either recycle it or use it for scraps in your cardboard projects. My daughter likes to glue them in with collages, paint them and add them to masks for added details, and sometimes even have me draw animals on them that she can cut out and play with. Then you have an open box that you can use for…

Storage. This one is easy enough, right? We like to use ours to keep ongoing projects in—say, beads, feathers, and string to a necklace we’re working on. We also use them to hold crayons, rolls of tape and glue sticks, and other art supplies. They also make great sock holders for little kid socks!

Houses. My daugher’s current favorite use of tissue boxes is to make them into houses. If you get varying sizes, this is even better. You can paint the outside to make actual cities, or as she prefers, simply leave them as-is and use them as you play with stuffed animals and small toys. She’s had me cut out “doors” and “windows” for them as well. She’s even used them as hospital beds for “sick” animals, too.

Party Favors. Instead of sending home a cellophane bag of stuff, create your own party favor box with your old tissue boxes. Have the kids go on a nature hunt and fill the boxes themselves with acorns, sticks, rocks, and whatever else you have around, then provide glue, string, and a few odds and ends for easy craft-making at home. (Alternatively, do the craft at the party, then send it home in the box.)

Make a diorama. Boy did I love to make these in school! I made one once with several acts from Romeo and Juliet, complete with “spotlight” holes above each scene. Let your little ones pick out any small toys, outdoor finds, magazine pictures, and anything else they like and go crazy adding them to make a fun scene.

Clown Shoes. Little ones who want to play dress up can do so in these easy-to-make clown shoes. Just put one box beneath the foot and tape the other box, with a semicircle cut out to fit, above the foot. This should be a supervised activity, however, as it can cause tripping!

What do you use facial tissue boxes for? Be sure to share your ideas in the comment section.

See also: Reuse It: Drink Boxes

Sometimes You Just Have to Recycle It

We have become huge re-users in our home. Most things get at least one chance at rebirth in our house, if not more. Most food scraps go to the compost bin to become fresh nutrients for our garden. Cereal boxes become paper holders and book dividers. Drink pouch boxes become toy or craft holders, play “houses,” or musical instruments. Milk jugs have limitless lives, from bird feeders to science experiments to scoops to games. Our crayons are currently housed in an old facial tissue box, while our paper Dominos set is in a Carnation Instant Breakfast box. Though we spend a bit of time, energy, and resources decorating many of these items (though not all of them), they are saved from becoming a part of a landfill—or worse, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

All of this said, we still have to recycle sometimes. Once things get too degraded to use, we simply have to put them in the bin and send them off with the truck that comes by each week. (Which, by the way, we are so fortunate to have in the first place.)

I do feel a bit bad when I have to toss things out, but there are only so many things you can do with a toilet paper roll. (Actually, there are thousands—but when you have them stockpiled up in huge mounds, it’s time to let a few go.) My aunt buys a ton of those little single-use drink packages and while we use them for holding tiny toys, beads, and sequins, or turning into cars, we can’t always find a use for the dozens of boxes she purchases. So some of them go into the recycling bin, too.

Then there’s the packaging! Oh, how we hate packaging. Much of it just doesn’t work well with new crafts, projects, or ideas; once you take it off a product, it’s got one home—the recycling bin. Sometimes I’ll try to keep a scrap to make into a bookmark (bookmark making is a hobby of mine, largely because there are never enough of the tings around when I need them!), and if my daughter requests to use something for a project, I usually say yes—but sometimes there’s just nothing else you can do with a carton or box.

I don’t think that means we should feel guilty about it; on the contrary, we should feel A. good that we can recycle in the first place and B. glad that it’s an exception to the rule. I’ve visited so many homes in which people do not recycle and everything gets sent to the landfill; I imagine the number of homes in which this happens and it really saddens me. I am grateful that I’m so privileged to have access to recycling—and that my family is creative enough to find new uses for old things.

I think we should also feel that this should not be the norm. We should think of this as a call for us as consumers to purchase less packaging overall, as well as to demand our suppliers to stop over-packaging so many things. Instead of fighting the corporations, of course, we should work with them in developing these strategies, explaining our suggestions, and ensuring that we will purchase goods that we need if they are made with sustainable practices and less packaging.

Borax: Is It Safe?

I wanted to address some responses to my last post, and a lot of people's reactions when I tell them about my awesome new laundry detergent.

(Quick backtrack: it IS awesome, bee tee doubleyew!  I had a grungy old cotton pillowcase that came out of the laundry looking brand new.  And it whisked away a cherry Kool-Aid stain on a white cotton dishtowel like it had never happened.  All this for about $1.65 for 2.5 gallons!)

After explaining the ingredients and the process, a surprising number of people have done research and returned with a fistful of links that say you shouldn't snort borax in bulk.  One person advised me to wear eye protection while mixing up my detergent on the stove.  Another said that I should lock it up away from my pets.

Okay, let's take a deep breath.  Now I know that the internet is prone to overreaction, particularly in the safety arena.  But to address those concerns I have to ask, What the **** do you think is in Tide?  

As much as I would love to believe that Cheer Bright Clean "Fresh Clean Scent" cleans your clothes with angel whispers and bunny giggles, this is not the case.  US regulations do not require detergent manufacturers to list the ingredients, and if you'll notice, many of them don't.  However, rest assured: that stuff is SUPER TOXIC.

You should not get Tide Plus Febreze Freshness Sport in your eyes.  Nor should you let your pets drink it.  (Fortunately, my cats seem about as likely to imbibe Tide as they do borax powder.)

Where does this fear come from?  Well, Borax doesn't have a multi-billion-dollar ad campaign involving children running through fields and laughing and flowers and clean sheets flapping in the breeze.  (That's not where Cheer comes from, by the way.  It's a petroleum product; they should show oil fields. But I digress.)

Borax also sounds like several things that ARE very toxic.  Like boron, and boric acid.  However, borax is neither of those things.  In fact, borax is a relatively inert chemical, a kind of salt, which is often used in place of salt.  Although admittedly, this is in countries with a looser understanding of "food safety" than the United States.

Let's be clear: you should probably not eat, drink, or snort borax.  Nor should you roll around in a bathtub full of it, lounging in the paste as you read a book and drink a nice glass of wine.  Most likely the worst that would happen is a rash, but if you eat enough borax, you can experience renal failure.  

Wikipedia says the LD50 (median lethal dose) of borax is 2.6 g/kg in rats.  So the median lethal dose for a 150 pound person would be about 6.5 ounces.  In other words, do not eat an entire cup of borax!  But also, you should not drink Tide or Cheer.

In fact, a mixture of borax, washing soda, and bar soap is quite a bit safer than any other laundry detergent on the market.  Incidentally, I was finally able to track down a list of the ingredients in Tide Original Scent.  A prominent ingredient?  That's right: borax!

Greenpeace's Report on Green Electronics

Since 2005, Greenpeace has been surveying the field of consumer electronics and rating their environmental friendliness.  The news in the first report was dire.  Five years later, even though "companies have made increasingly stronger commitments to eliminate toxic chemicals, increase their products; energy efficiency and improve their recycling efforts by embracing financial responsibility for their electronic waste" the situation has improved only marginally over previous years. [PDF]

The good news: toxic chemicals like PVC are being reduced.  More post-consumer recycled plastic is being used in "larger products such as TVs and monitors."  Energy Star requirements are being met at a better rate.

This is a voluntary survey.  15 companies (including Dell, Motorola, Sony, and more) participated this year.  Six chose not to, including Apple, Microsoft and Nintendo.  Boo!

One item Greenpeace chose to highlight is the Lenovo L2440x Wide computer monitor.  This monitor performed "exceptionally well" in comparison to the competition.  It's free of PVC, BFR, phthalates, antimony, and beryllium.  A third of its plastic is post-consumer recycled waste, and its LED backlight display is energy efficient and mercury free.

The report lists the five greenest of each consumer electronics category: desktop computer, notebook computer, mobile phone, smart phones, computer monitors, and televisions.  

We still clearly have a long way to go when it comes to electronics.  The best way to have green consumer electronics is not to buy a new one!  I know this flies in the face of The American Way, which is "shopping," but it's true.  Even if your old cell phone is kind of boring and can't run apps, it's better for the planet than buying a new one.  New electronics don't just pop out of nowhere, and the process of mining the minerals, building the components, and shipping it all out to the stores is appalling.

However, in less curmudgeonly news, Dell's new bamboo packaging has been ASTM certified as compostable.  Furthermore, the packaging is made from bamboo, which is a crop with a remarkably low environmental impact.  Bamboo grows quickly in swampy areas which would otherwise be cleared and drained.  It requires no fertilizers to grow, and no pesticides to keep it bug-free.  

Dell began using the compostable packaging with its Mini 10 and Mini 10v netbooks.  Building on the success of the packaging with those items, it rolled out the composting packaging to some of its Inspiron laptops as well.

Anyone with an environmentally friendly heart can't help but cringe when they open the packaging for a consumer electronics item.  I understand that they can't just wrap your CPU in recycled brown paper and ship it to the stores.  But I was still dismayed the last time I bought a computer, when I had to figure out what to do with all those bags, baggies, twist ties, and oddly shaped blocks of Styrofoam.

Here's hoping Dell's compostable packaging gets pushed out to other items on their product line!  And if they could find a way to make a compostable clamshell for things that hang on the racks at stores (like batteries and flash cards) I would never buy a non-Dell product again.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user AxsDeny

Reading Labels: What's IN This Stuff?

Ever wondered what's in a bottle of Zout Enzymatic Stain Remover?  It is made of, and I quote the label, "Cleaning agents and enzymes."  Cleaning agents!  You don't say?  Wow, thanks for clearing that up, because I thought your stain remover was made from baked beans and kitten whiskers.

As part of my quest to go entirely sulfate-free due to allergies, I have spent a lot of time poring over the labels of random products in the grocery store aisles.  I have found some real surprises!

For example, did you know that the government does not require cleaning products to list their ingredients?  Any cleaning product which lists its ingredients is doing so on a strictly voluntary basis.  This is why, if you turn around a lot of laundry detergent bottles, you will find a lot of vague weasel language.

To my dismay, a lot of "green" cleaners use this same vague language.  For example, the label on Seventh Generation products is going to explain that it's made of "plant-based surfactants," which means nothing.  SLS, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, is one of the things that many eco-hippies (like myself) and concerned parents are trying to avoid.  SLS is a chemical derived from coconut oil, so "plant based surfactants" can, and probably does, mean SLS.

Basically, you have to pick your battles, and you're at their mercy.  

If you ask me, it's a mistake to buy any supposedly eco-friendly product which comes in a plastic bottle.  If you're lucky, plastic never degrades.  If you're not lucky, it breaks down into little fragments that get blown out to sea and fill up the North Pacific Gyre and get consumed by albatross chicks.  Furthermore, as if it needs repeating, plastic is a petroleum product.  How eco-friendly can something be if it's contained inside a petroleum product?

All of those plastic containers are single-use, too.  Such a waste!  

Of course, an argument could be made that if you have to read the label, you're buying the wrong thing.  This goes for food, too.  If you have to turn a food container around and read the ingredients to find out what's in it, you're doing it wrong.  When was the last time you turned over a head of lettuce to see what's inside?  Or a box of rolled oats?

(This doesn't include checking for allergy information, obviously.  Those rolled oats might be made in a facility that processes tree nuts.  I'm strictly talking about the ingredients, not the safety or nutritional data.)

In fact, you can do your wallet, the planet, and your own health a favor in one stroke just by ONLY purchasing things with an ingredients list that you can correctly guess without peeking.

For example, istead of buying a box of Pop Secret Movie Flavor Microwavable Popcorn (ingredients: "Whole Grain Popcorn, Partially hydrogenated, Soybean oil, Butter, cream,milk, Natural & Artifical flavor, Color added, Preserved with Propyl Gallate") buy a bag of regular old popcorn (ingredients: "popcorn").  It takes about the same time to make it, and you can customize  the levels of butter, salt, and propyl gallate to your liking.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user elmada

Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

There are a lot of reasons to make your own laundry detergent!  From a health perspective, homemade laundry detergent lacks irritating chemicals like perfumes, petroleum distillates, and my personal enemy SLS and SLES.  From an environmental standpoint, homemade laundry detergent isn't made with toxic chemicals and byproducts from the industrial process, and it doesn't result in an endless supply of empty plastic detergent containers having to be recycled or thrown away.  And from a crafty perspective, it's fun to make, and you can give it any smell you like!

Best of all, from a frugal perspective, Trent at The Simple Dollar calculated that homemade laundry detergent is about 1/20th the cost!

The basic recipe for making your own laundry detergent is: 2 parts soap flakes, 1 part borax, and 1 part washing soda.

The Ingredients

Soap Flakes.  You can use any soap for this.  If you travel a lot, you can save up the free mini bars of hotel soap.  The little slivers of leftover soap in the shower work great.  A bar of Fels Naptha laundry soap is the classic, of course!  You can also buy a cardboard box of soap flakes in the laundry aisle, if you look closely enough.  If you want to go super-pure, buy a bar of Dr. Bronner's soap.  As a bonus, it smells nice!

Use a cheese grater to turn bar soap into flakes.

Borax.  I used to be scared of borax!  I think I was confusing it with boric acid.  Borax is perfectly safe, and is even used as a food additive in some countries.  Borax is a mineral which is mined in the Southwestern United States.

Washing soda, or "soda ash" is sodium carbonate.  When you're shopping, look for Arm & Hammer SUPER Washing Soda.  Check the label to verify it's sodium carbonate.  Apparently many stores (including Walmart) also sell Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (no SUPER), which is sodium bicarbonate or baking soda.  

Making The Detergent

Make liquid laundry detergent:  the basic process is to melt the soap flakes in simmering water on the stovetop, add the borax and washing soda, pour it into a bucket, and add more water to make five gallons.  The Simple Dollar has a great tutorial on this process, including lots of pictures and descriptions.

Make powdered laundry detergent:  many people just mix up the soap flakes with the powdered borax and washing soda.  Lisa at Condo Blues mixes up one bar of soap, a half cup of Borax, and a half cup of washing soda, and shakes it up in a jar.  

Make dishwashing liquid: you can use liquid laundry detergent in a squeeze bottle to wash your dishes.  A few drops of citrus oil or a splash of lemon juice will make it smell great!

Scent: Obviously your detergent is going to come out smelling like the soap you used.  To customize the smell of liquid detergent, use an unscented soap, and add drops of essential oil.  

For powdered detergent the easiest thing to do is find a soap that has the scent you want.  I recommend Dr. Bronner's bar soaps, which come in a variety of awesome smells!

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Chiot's Run

A Better Soap

I recently found a great reason to switch from commercial detergents containing sulfates like SLS, SLES, and other irritating surfactants.  I'm loving life free of adult acne and dandruff, don't get me wrong!  But it can be a mind-bender to shift away from standard over-the-counter detergents for shampoo, toothpaste, laundry, and other uses.

Luckily, making the switch to better cleaning products isn't just good for you and your skin: it's good for the environment, and your budget too!  Traditional detergents are made with petroleum products.  (Hello, Gulf of Mexico, nice knowing ya.)  And they don't biodegrade, which means that their toxic ingredients seep into our ground water and the ecosystem at large.

The first thing I learned was the difference between "soap" and "detergents."  Soap in this context is an alkaline product made with oils, which cleans by lifting away dirt.  Soap in its simplest form is made by mixing lye with fats.

Most of the things we call "soap" these days are technically detergents.  This is a chemical concoction of ingredients which degrease, foam, and smell very pretty.  Unfortunately they also can be very irritating, and may have lasting health effects.

The canonical "better soap" is Dr. Bronner's.  Yes, the crazy label soap!  Almost everyone will recognize this, if only as "that weird peppermint soap that my parents' hippie friends used in the 70s."  Dr. Bronner's is the real deal, and you can use it for just about everything.  Just be sure to dilute it!

This liquid soap is highly concentrated.  For most uses, dilute it 1 part soap to 40 parts water (about 1 teaspoon soap to a cup of water).  I have been using a bottle of this dilution level as shampoo.  It also works great as a refill in a liquid soap dispenser for washing your hands.

I like to use a stronger mixture (about 1 tablespoon per cup of water) for hand-washing dishes.  I store it in a plastic squeeze bottle meant for ketchup and other condiments.  

Add ¼ cup of soap to the washing machine for laundry.  I recommend this for warm water washing only.

You can even use a few drops of the diluted form as toothpaste, although I wouldn't recommend it.

Dr. Bronner's comes in several varieties: peppermint, eucalyptus, almond, rose, lavender, citrus, tea tree, and "baby mild."

The one down side to Dr. Bronner's is that it performs poorly in cold water.  It lumps up and separates, and no matter how hard I splash the water it never mixes properly.  This is a problem for my regular laundry (because I always wash in cold water), and for when I hand-wash my knitting (wool must be washed cold).

For laundry, it's soapnuts to the rescue!  These are the nuts of the saponin tree.  They smell terrible, but they don't leave their smell behind.  

Soap nuts are a little more expensive than Dr. Bronner's, but they are totally worth it.  The nuts themselves don't work very well in cold water, but you can easily make a soapnut soak, which creates several cups of liquid soap nut soap.  The soak works great in cold water!  I like to add a few drops of tea tree oil to scent the liquid.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user jilldoughtie

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