The word on the box
EWG Verified
The only word of the five that names an actual organization, which is exactly why it needs the most care.
How much of the catalog uses this word
Closed to the left of the slider: the one listing that uses this word. Open to the right: the rest of the catalog, which does not.
What it is
EWG Verified is a program run by the Environmental Working Group, a private non-profit organization. The program publishes its own criteria and grants its mark to products that it accepts against them. The organization describes the program on its own site, and that description is the authority on what the mark means.
Who defines it
The Environmental Working Group defines it, and nobody else does. It is not a federal standard, it is not administered by EPA, FDA or CPSC, and it does not carry the force of a regulation. That is not a criticism of the program. It is a description of what kind of thing it is, and it matters because a mark on a box is read by shoppers as governmental far more often than it is one.
Short versionA private organization defines it against criteria it publishes itself.
What it does not promise
- It does not indicate approval, review or certification by any government agency.
- It does not say anything about what the product must not be mixed with.
- It does not describe how the product behaves on any particular fiber.
- It is not treated by this site as evidence of safety, and no product here is compared to another on that basis.
The one listing that uses it
| Listing | Category | What that listing states |
|---|---|---|
| Kind Laundry Detergent Sheets, Ocean Breeze, 60 loads | Detergent Sheets | 60 loads and uses the words EWG Verified, non-toxic and plastic-free |
The longer read
One listing in this catalog carries this mark, and it carries it alongside two phrases from the cluster on the non-toxic page. That combination is worth noticing on its own terms. A single box can hold a private program mark that does mean something specific under published criteria, and two phrases that mean nothing specific at all, printed in the same typeface, at the same size, doing the same reassuring job on the same shelf. Telling the three apart is most of the skill this page is trying to hand over.
Published sources for this page
The other words on the box are covered under Labels, and the pairings they never mention are under Conflicts.