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The Best Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products (2024): For Kitchens, Bathrooms, and Laundry

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Deep-cleaning my house tends to leave me with a lot of plastic bags, paper, and plastic containers to throw away. It got me wondering how I could make my cleaning routines less wasteful. Scientists are developing new ways to recycle plastic, but it’s not an Earth-friendly material, and cleaning supplies use a lot of it.

Common solutions like disinfecting sprays and soaps are largely composed of water, which makes those products heavy and hard to ship efficiently. Excessive packaging is another factor in cleaning-product waste, as are harmful chemicals that can end up in the water supply (or in you). Add in the risk of microplastic shedding and a gazillion greenwashed Instagram ads, and it can be difficult to know how to make things clean and greener.

Below are some of my favorite cleaning products that try to be environmentally conscious. They won’t feel too different from what you already use, and are relatively affordable. For the ultimate cheap minimalist homemade cleaning solution, baking soda and vinegar paired with elbow grease will do the trick for many tasks (though baking soda can harm certain materials like aluminum, so do your research). Be sure to check out our other eco-friendly guides, like the Best Reusable Products, Best Recycled Products, and Best Clothes Made of Recycled Materials.

Updated April 2024: We’ve added JAWS and LastObject (and a new look).

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Eco-Friendly Cleaners for the Whole House

Some cleaning supply manufacturers offer general-use products you’d typically buy in spray bottles. All the brands below go the extra mile with refills, simpler ingredients, or plastic-free shipping.

Our Top Pick

Supernatural’s kit is pricey, but it goes on sale a few times a year. The frosted glass spray bottles are hefty (in a good way), and the silicone bottoms keep them in place. The nozzles don’t clog or get jammed, though the bottles can leak if you don’t twist and close the lid carefully. The glass concentrate vials contain blends of essential oils for windows and mirrors, counters and granite, bath and tile, or wood and floors. The products smell amazing—like fresh botanicals, not artificial or chemical like most cleaning solutions. This set is the only one I’ve continued to purchase refills for. And I especially like that the refills are in glass, so there’s no single-use plastic involved.

Runner-Up

Blueland’s cheap refills come in the form of dissolvable tablets. You’ll get a few reusable Tritan Forever Bottles by purchasing a $46 starter kit. You can subscribe to a refill re-up plan for a bit less money. Starter kit refills include hand soap, bathroom cleaner, glass and mirror cleaner, and multipurpose cleaner. (And for what it’s worth, I wasn’t going through a bottle of glass cleaner each month. Maybe I’m gross—I don’t think most people scrub their mirrors every day—but if you’re in the same camp, you might not need a monthly subscription.) Blueland also offers laundry soap, dishwashing essentials, and various accessories. You can mix and match products to suit your needs. Everything I tried smelled great and did the job. The tablets can take a little while to dissolve, so mix the solutions up an hour or two before you tackle your chores.

Most Versatile

The starter kit gets you a 34-ounce bottle of sustainable concentrated cleaning solution, spray bottles with fill lines for easy dilution, and a tub of Oxygen Boost powder. You’ll get enough concentrate for three bottles of all-purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, bathroom cleaner, and foaming wash, respectively, plus a 64-load laundry bottle. The unscented concentrate is powerful and made from simple ingredients. You can also buy it separately and supply your own bottles. Fans of nice-smelling cleaners might find this set lacking, but a few drops of essential oils would liven things up in the olfactory department.

Best Design

Grove Collaborative Essential Cleaner Concentrates Set

Grove Co. cleaning concentrates are available in a three-pack. You’ll get all-purpose, glass, and tub-and-tile cleaners. Dump the contents into 16-ounce bottles (also on Grove’s site) and fill them with water. I especially like the glass cleaner, which works better than Windex—and smells nicer.

Easiest Refills

JAWS stands for “Just Add Water System,” and that holds up. The refills are pods you twist onto proprietary bottles. Add water, twist in a refill, and your solutions are mixed up. These cleaners smell like traditional cleaning products, and the bottles are a little … curvaceous. That means they can be a bit awkward to store. But there are a few unique cleaners that JAWS includes in this starter kit, like a granite cleaner and a general disinfectant.

For Sensitive Households

Seventh Generation All-Purpose Cleaner

This bio-based product isn’t sold in concentrates, but I’m including it here because I haven’t tried anything else like it. It has no fragrance and no color. It almost feels like you’re cleaning with water. If you’re sensitive to fragrances, to the point where “lightly scented” still gives you a headache, this is what you’re looking for.

For the Kitchen

From reusable dishcloths to eco-friendly dish soaps, there are a few options to make your kitchen cleaning routine better for the planet.

Best Overall Dish Soap

Seventh Generation Liquid Dish Soap

I tested this one a while ago, but I’ve repurchased it many times. It’s made of plant-based ingredients, and the biodegradable formula gets the job done. It doesn’t dry out my hands as much as the stuff I used to use. It’s available in multipacks online, and you can choose from various scents (including unscented).

Runner-Up Dish Soap

JuniperSeed Mercantile Laundry Stain Stick

This bar is technically meant for cleaning tough stains on your clothes before you toss them into the laundry. Dampen the end of the bar and the stain, scrub away, and then toss the garment into the laundry. However, the bar effectively doubles as dish soap. I also like No Tox Life’s ($14) dishwashing block.

Biodegradable Dishcloths

Three Bluebirds Swedish Dishcloths

These fast-drying biodegradable cloths are made of cellulose and cotton. Unlike typical washcloths, these don’t get smelly or mildewy. You can wash them up to 200 times in your washing machine or the top rack of your dishwasher. The eye-catching designs are a bonus. Mine started degrading after a couple of months of use but lasted longer than similar products I tried.

A Great Scrub

I didn’t want to love this extremely popular, cheery sponge, but it lives up to the hype. The shape and texture make it weirdly effective for scrubbing, wiping, and suds. I use it for everything from doing my dishes to cleaning my floors. It’s also more durable than other similarly priced sponges. While the sponge itself isn’t especially sustainable, Scrub Daddy products are recyclable, making them a better option than sponges you’d throw away.

Best Overall Reusable Paper Towels

These bright cotton flannel towels are durable and absorbent. They get even more absorbent after a few washes. They also cling together, so you can roll them up on a cardboard tube just like the paper alternatives. Note that the clinginess means they attract lint and dust pretty easily, so be prepared to wash them often. But still! If you’re trying to go zero-waste, these are one good way to do that.

Runner-Up Paper Towels

Cloud Paper Bamboo Paper Towels

If you prefer more traditional paper towels, these strike a good balance between familiarity and sustainability. They’re made of bamboo—no trees. The towels aren’t the softest, but they are absorbent and don’t fall apart or shed easily. For gross or quick tasks like cleaning up cat hairballs or cooking residue, I feel less guilty throwing these out than a tree-based paper towel.

Great Trash Bags

They aren’t as durable as traditional trash bags, but they’re made of 90 percent post-consumer plastic. (The other 10 percent is renewable sugarcane.) I think the eco-friendly composition makes these a worthy trade-off. The brand makes clear recycling bags as well.

Reusable Mop Pads

JuniperSeed Mercantile Sweeper Pads

These sweeper pads are a sturdier, less wasteful alternative to disposable mop pads. They work with Swiffer mops and similar systems, and they can be used wet or dry. The thick, absorbent texture makes cleaning the floor easy. Toss the pads in the washing machine to reuse them.

For the Laundry Room

Washing machines are a major culprit in microplastic pollution, but every little bit can help, right? Here are a few eco-friendly cleaning supplies for your laundry room.

Detergent Pods

These pods smell fantastic, work with high-efficiency machines, get your clothes squeaky clean, and are made of plant-derived ingredients. There are no dyes, and shipping is free and carbon-neutral. I also like the company’s wool dryer balls ($29) as an alternative to fabric softener sheets. If you don’t like pods, try MyKieri’s Easy-Spray Laundry Detergent ($28).

Laundry Sheets

We’ve recommended a few products from LastObject over the years. These laundry detergent sheets look like fabric softener sheets, except they’re soap. They dissolve in hot or cold water right inside your washer. They’re super affordable, and there’s no plastic jug involved. There aren’t any dyes or perfumes, either.

A Stain Remover

I tested this plant-based spray on blood, coffee, red sauce, and makeup. It removed them all. It doesn’t contain chlorine, dyes, or other common irritants typically found in stain removers.

A Laundry Cleaning Boost

Branch Basics Oxygen Boost Bleach-Free Detergent Booster

This baking soda booster is free of bleach, ammonia, dyes, and fragrances. It’s also septic-safe. I especially like it for linens and towels—it leaves them really fresh and banishes any lingering smells.

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What Makes a Cleaning Product Sustainable?

“Eco-friendly” is an extremely vague term that can be misleading, especially in marketing. No product is perfect, but the Environmental Protection Agency has some things to look for when searching for more environmentally friendly cleaning supplies.

For product composition, the smaller the list, the better. A concentrated product produces fewer carbon emissions and creates less waste to ship than a heavier, more diluted version, and a powder or tablet is even smaller. The EPA Safer Choice program vets products and certifies them if they meet the agency’s standards for safer, more environmentally friendly products. Certified products feature the Safer Choice certification label on their packaging. Other certifications you may want to look for include those from the Rainforest Alliance, Leaping Bunny, and One Percent for the Planet. All of these certifications can help you make more sustainable choices when you’re shopping.

You can also take a look at the ingredients. For example, we look for products that are biodegradable and have less fragrance and other unnecessary additives. You can also check various brands’ sustainability initiatives. Is the shipping carbon-neutral? Is the packaging minimal and recyclable?

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BYD Seal 2024 Review: Prices, Specs, Availability

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A compact, family-size car, the BYD Seal is unapologetically aimed at taking on the Tesla Model 3. That said, it’s bigger than the American in every dimension, most notably in both length (4,800 millimeters versus 4,694 millimeters for the Model 3) and wheelbase (2,920 millimeters versus 2,875 millimeters). The result is a roomier car with interior space similar to that of a vehicle in a class above.

Sleek, and with a Model 3–beating drag coefficient of just 0.219 Cd, the Seal is the production version of the Ocean-X concept from 2021. That concept is where BYD revealed the eplatform 3.0 that underpins all of its current cars.

Better Blades

As we wrote about in our review of the BYD Atto 3, the company’s patented “blade battery” pack design aims to set it apart from other manufacturers. It’s a key component of the Seal’s platform and arranges lithium iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries in a bladelike design.

BYD claims its use of LFP as the cathode material makes for a safer battery than conventional lithium-ion alternatives. It also boasts of improved thermal stability and a higher energy density than its rivals. The Blade design also means that puncture damage to the battery pack in a collision is less likely to cause thermal runaway and the potential for fire, BYD says.

Also featured in the Seal is what BYD claims to be the world’s first 8-in-1 electric powertrain system, with an overall efficiency of 89 percent. This combines the drive motor, inverter, transmission, onboard charger, AC/DC, power distribution unit, vehicle control unit, and battery management system. The platform is also capable of 800-volt charging (like Kia and Hyundai), but while in other EVs this often means the possibility for ultrafast DC charging, the Seal is limited to a middling 150 kW.

There’s also a direct heating and cooling system for the battery, which increases thermal efficiency by up to a claimed 20 percent. BYD also says improved thermal efficiency can mean a 20 percent improvement to range in cold weather, too.

Interestingly, the Seal’s blade battery forms an integral part of the Seal’s eplatform 3.0 architecture and allows for a cell-to-body (CTB) construction, where the battery pack itself is incorporated within the vehicle structure, improving rigidity.

CTB means that the batteries are no longer a dead weight in the car, and now form part of the load-bearing structure, with the top of the battery pack effectively being the floor of the car. This means torsional rigidity can be 40,500 Nm/degree, which is about the level of a luxury car.

Refined Ride

Image may contain Car Transportation Vehicle Chair Furniture and Hatchback

Low-speed ride quality can be a touch lacking, but once up to speed the Seal is fun to drive.

PHOTOGRAPH: BYD

All this translates into good handling with a comfortable, somewhat refined ride at speed. Those fairly conventional but not unattractive looks are somewhat beguiling, since there’s 50/50 weight distribution and double wishbone suspension at the front to give a sporty setup.

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Green Roofs Are Great. Blue-Green Roofs Are Even Better

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Photo of a green roof landscape

Courtesy of De Dakdokters

Below that stretches a filter layer, which keeps the soil from getting into the next layer, a lightweight crate system that stores the water. And finally, below that you’ve got additional layers to keep water and plant roots from infiltrating the actual roof. “You have, in fact, a flat rain barrel on top of your roof,” says Kasper Spaan, policy developer for climate adaptation at Waternet, Amsterdam’s public water management organization, which is participating in RESILIO.

The water levels in the blue-green roof are managed by a smart valve. If the weather forecast says a storm is coming, the system will release stored water from the roof ahead of time. That way, when a downpour comes, the roof refills, meaning there’s less rainwater entering the gutters and sewers in the surrounding area. In other words, the roof becomes a sponge that the operator can wring out as needed. “In the ‘squeezable’ sponge city, you make the whole city malleable,” says Spaan.

This makes the traditional system of stormwater management more flexible, but also more complicated. So the RESILIO project used software from Autodesk to model the impact of blue-green roofs and the risk of flooding in Amsterdam, also adjusting for climate change.

“You can take a look at historical flood patterns, and then you can do simulations that will help you understand: If I could take this much capacity out of the drainage network, when the storm comes, I’m going reduce flooding by 10, 15, 20 percent,” says Amy Bunszel, executive vice president of architecture, engineering, and construction design solutions at Autodesk. “So our software allows them to do simulations and play with different trade-offs.”

Beyond the sponge-city benefits, blue-green roofs can cool the top floor of a building, essentially “sweating” off the stored water. With the right kinds of indigenous plants, they can also boost biodiversity by catering to native pollinating insects. Going a step further, scientists are also experimenting with growing crops on rooftops under solar panels, known as rooftop agrivoltaics. Theoretically, pairing that with blue-green systems might actually improve the efficiency of the solar panels by cooling them with the evaporating water.

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Olive Union Olive Max Hearing Aids: For Mild Hearing Loss

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You don’t have to be nearly deaf to use a hearing aid. Many doctors urge patients to get started with the devices early, before hearing loss becomes critical. Olive Union’s Olive Max is the first hearing aid I’ve encountered designed for this specific purpose, built for users with “mild to moderate” hearing loss, which the company defines as 26 to 55 decibels of loss. That’s right in line with my diagnosis, so I figured I’d be a perfect candidate for these new devices.

Out of the box, you’re likely to say what I—and everyone I’ve been around—immediately said when I first laid eyes on the Olive Max: They sure are big. Like, really big. Each looks like a Bluetooth headset from the early 2000s, except you have to wear two. At least the units, in a two-tone white and gray design, look sporty, including a wrap-around ear hook that helps keep them in place. They also carry an IPX7 water-resistance rating. But at more than 12 grams each, they’re a solid four or five times the weight of a typical over-the-counter hearing aid. A total of eight different ear tips, in three different styles, are included in the kit to ensure you get a good fit.

Two white and black overtheear hearing aids floating side by side

Photograph: Olive Union

As hearing aids, the Olive Max units work roughly as advertised, and casual users can pop them out of the box and into their ears to get started with minimal fuss, though getting them hooked over your ear properly can be tricky, especially if you wear glasses. Controls on the back of each aid handle volume (independently for each ear) and let you select one of four environmental modes (TV, Meeting Room, Outdoor, or Restaurant). You can also use the buttons to toggle “Hear-Thru mode,” which lets you turn off environmental audio processing altogether if you simply want to use the Olive Max as Bluetooth earbuds.

You can fine-tune your listening experience in the My Olive app—though, bizarrely, the hearing aid manual does not mention that an app exists, or even that you can use the hearing aids as Bluetooth earbuds. (You want the My Olive app (Android, iOS), not the incompatible Olive Smart Ear app.) The app allows you to make the same adjustments as the physical controls, but it also offers a noise-reduction and feedback-cancellation feature (pro tip: max out both of these), and it includes a more detailed graphic equalizer that lets you fine-tune frequency response further.

You can’t test your hearing directly within the app, although a short questionnaire will hook you up with various “AI-recommended presets” based on your age and a few other basic inputs. If you want anything more refined, you’ll need to delve into the equalizer by hand, but this is mostly a trial-and-error situation. It’s also worth noting that the My Olive app includes an audio therapy system designed to help people with tinnitus. I don’t suffer from tinnitus so I wasn’t qualified to test this feature.

2 overtheear hearing aids floating beside a mobile device with a screen showing adjustment settings for the hearing aids

Photograph: Olive Union

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Skip the Paste—You Should Chomp Down on a Toothpaste Tablet

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It takes more effort to use a toothpaste tablet than your standard toothpaste. You’ll want to chew it a few times and move the remnants of the powdered tablet around your mouth to get it all over versus unevenly dispersed. It’s not hard to do, but some aggressive chomps before brushing your teeth might not be the evening workout you’re used to.

The toothbrush will help distribute the tablet and foam it up, but I’ve found it’s easier to distribute it as much as you can from the get-go. You’ll also want to use a wet toothbrush to add more moisture to achieve maximum foam. There are plenty of nights where I grab two tablets instead of one, if I feel like one isn’t enough foam for my teeth that day.

It’s a weird sensation that takes some getting used to; it feels much more powdery and dry than the gel toothpaste most people use, and if you don’t chew it up well enough you might not feel like your teeth got cleaned at all. My husband tried toothpaste tablets and hated the texture and feel immediately. It took me about a week to get used to it, but now I can’t go back.

Sweet Tooth

One of the big reasons I can’t go back is because whenever I try regular toothpaste, I’m struck by how sugary-sweet it tastes.

Toothpastes don’t have sugar in them—at least not ones that are approved by the American Dental Association—but they do have some kind of sweetening agents to make it taste better. Colgate, a major toothpaste maker, lists saccharine and sorbitol as common sweetening agents. Both of these are artificial sweeteners and are used to cover the flavor of the less tasty ingredients.

Hand holding clear jar with white label and silver lid. Black countertop and toothbrush behind it.

Photograph: Nena Farrell

Some tablets also use sweetening agents. A popular choice is xylitol, which Huppy, another toothpaste tablet maker, says is “a natural sweetener that wards off unwelcome bacteria.” It’s also listed as an ingredient in my Bite tablets. Xylitol isn’t artificial—it’s found in plants and fruits— and there is some limited research to support that it can reduce plaque and protect enamel when used in dental settings.

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Here’s a Clever Way to Uncover America’s Voting Deserts

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The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.

In Georgia’s 2020 gubernatorial election, some voters in Atlanta waited over 10 hours to cast a ballot. One reason for the long lines was that almost 10 percent of Georgia’s polling sites had closed over the preceding seven years, despite an influx of about 2 million voters. These closures were disproportionately concentrated in predominantly Black areas that tended to vote Democratic.

But pinpointing the locations of “voting deserts” isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. Sometimes a lack of capacity is reflected in long waits at the polls, but other times the problem is the distance to the nearest polling place. Combining these factors in a systematic way is tricky.

In a paper due to be published this summer in the journal SIAM Review, Mason Porter, a mathematician at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his students used tools from topology to do just that. Abigail Hickok, one of the paper’s coauthors, conceived the idea after seeing images of long lines in Atlanta. “Voting was on my mind a lot, partly because it was an especially anxiety-inducing election,” she said.

Topologists study the underlying properties and spatial relations of geometric shapes under transformation. Two shapes are considered topologically equivalent if one can deform into the other via continuous movements without tearing, gluing, or introducing new holes.

At first glance, topology would seem to be a poor fit for the problem of polling site placement. Topology concerns itself with continuous shapes, and polling sites are at discrete locations. But in recent years, topologists have adapted their tools to work on discrete data by creating graphs of points connected by lines and then analyzing the properties of those graphs. Hickok said these techniques are useful not only for understanding the distribution of polling places but also for studying who has better access to hospitals, grocery stores, and parks.

That’s where the topology begins.

Imagine creating tiny circles around each point on the graph. The circles start with a radius of zero, but they grow with time. Specifically, when the time exceeds the wait time at a given polling place, the circle will begin to expand. As a consequence, locations with shorter wait times will have bigger circles—they start growing first—and locations with longer wait times will have smaller ones.

Some circles will eventually touch each other. When this happens, draw a line between the points at their centers. If multiple circles overlap, connect all those points into “simplices,” which is just a general term meaning shapes such as triangles (a 2-simplex) and tetrahedrons (3-simplex).

Infographic

Courtesy of Merrill Sherman/Quanta Magazine

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You Can Clamp Your Phone Into Razer’s Fancy New Game Controller

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Given everyone’s sustained interest in playing games on their phones, companies are eager to offer an experience that works better than just jabbing your fingers on a touchscreen. Razer, the maker of unapologetically robust and garish gaming devices, has a new offering that does just that.

The new Razer Kishi Ultra is a souped up controller that adds pro-level thumbsticks, buttons, and triggers to just about any mobile device. It’s the latest in Razer’s Kishi lineup of portable gaming devices, which launched in 2020. The two handles pull apart, allowing you to slide your phone in between them. Let the spring-loaded clamp grip your phone, and you’ve got something like a DIY Nintendo Switch. It uses a USB-C port to connect to the phone. In addition, it can handle an iPad Mini and any Android tablet measuring up to 8 diagonal inches as long as it has a USB-C port. The Kishi Ultra only works with USB-C iPhones, so it’s limited to iPhone 15 and beyond. (It can even handle some folding phones.) The Kishi Ultra can also connect to your PC via USB-C cable. Like nearly everything Razer makes, the Kishi Ultra is loaded up with RGB lighting options which you can change via the associated app, so you can have your fill of customizable flashiness.

The Kishi is unlike the Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck, which are fully fledged portable gaming machines on their own. But gaming devices with more specific use cases are gaining popularity, like Playstation’s Portal device, which only lets you stream games from your existing PS5. Razer has been making gaming handheld devices since 2013, and has its own Steam Deck-style Razer Edge handheld. But more and more companies are eager to make devices that work with the screen you already have in your pocket. Devices like Razer’s latest and those from the gaming company Backbone are meant to strap controllers to the side of your device and enhance your mobile play time.

Here’s some other consumer tech news from this week.

Meta Adds an AI Images to WhatsApp

Meta has added AI Image generation capabilities to its WhatsApp messaging platform. As part of its rollout for its Llama 3 large language model that came this week, the company has juiced up its Meta AI in-app offerings.

The AI image generation option in WhatsApp works like sending a text message. You can go into a private chat with Meta AI and type out a prompt. The keyword in the input field is “imagine,” so if you type that and a description of the image you want to create, the AI assistant will generate a visual representation of your prompt. And it happens nearly instantly. The image pops up on screen as you’re typing, and you can see the image change and generate in real time as you add more words to your prompt. This can get … quite weird as you add more parameters to your request, but the more descriptive you are, the more detail the generator can work into a picture. The resulting images are about what you would expect from any AI art source these days—weird proportions, humans with too many fingers, misplaced eyeballs. Still, it’s both neat and very strange to watch an AI generate your description of something as you’re writing it.

Meet GMC’s Hulking New Denali EV Pickup

2024 GMC Sierra EV Denali Edition 1 parked on a grassy rock near a river

Photograph: GMC

There is a deluge of new EVs coming out this year, ranging from tiny three-wheeled smart cars like the Nimbus One to revved-up supercars like the upcoming electric Dodge Charger. Pickup trucks are a slightly more niche space in the EV market, aside from popular models like the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian’s offerings, and Tesla’s floundering Cybertruck (every one of which was just recalled.)

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20 Best Earth Day Deals (2024): Ebikes, Chargers, and Bags Made of Recycled Plastic

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Earth Day arrives on Monday, April 22, but you can already take part. We at WIRED value sustainability all year long, and right now you’ll find plenty of sales on our favorite eco-conscious gear. Be sure to check out our related buying guides, including Best Reusable Products, Best Recycled and Upcycled Gear, Best Clothing Made of Recycled Materials, Best Recycled Backpacks, and Best Eco-Friendly Cleaning Supplies.

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Organic Mattress Deals

Organic mattresses are made without the harsh chemicals that can have a detrimental impact on the environment. Our Best Organic Mattresses guide has more details and recommendations, but here are a few of our favorites on sale.

Avocado Green Mattress on bed frame

Avocado Green

Photograph: Melissa Krused/Avocado Mattress

Our top organic mattress pick meets the perfect criteria of “not too hard but not too soft.” After nearly two years of testing, our reviewer says there is no sagging. Avocado’s nontoxic mattress is made of organic latex, wool, and cotton. You can read more about it in our Mattress Buying Guide.

The Birch Luxe is one of our favorite organic mattresses and you’ll find it in our Best Mattresses guide. Though mattresses go on sale quite often, this price beats what we saw during Cyber Monday. The deal includes two free Eco-Rest pillows. This medium-firm model is especially great for side sleepers, and the mattress is made with natural latex and wool.

This mattress is featured in our Best Organic Mattress Buying Guide as the best flippable pick. Most modern-day mattresses have just one side to sleep on. This mattress has a “plush” side and a “firm” side. The company says there’s an 18 percent difference between the two sides. We didn’t notice it that much, but in any case, it’s nice to be able to fully rotate your mattress. This model also has great edge support and a neutral sleeping temperature.

Turmerry Organic Mattress

Turmerry Organic

Photograph: Turmerry

This organic mattress is made mostly of latex, with a few layers of natural foam. That makes the bed less cumbersome to carry and move around than all-latex mattresses. You can configure the bed in several ways for customized firmness levels.

I tested this floppy, fantastic affordable organic mattress. It’s cheaper than many of its competitors. The bed is both supportive and bouncy, with rigid edges. And I like that there are handles on the side—the company says you shouldn’t use them to transport the bed, but the handles do give you something to grip onto when rearranging your room or when moving.

Tech and Household Deals

Victrola ReSpin Record Player

Victrola Re-Spin Bluetooth Suitcase Record Player

Photograph: Victrola

This little suitcase record player is comprised of 25 percent recycled plastic. We wrote an entire rave about the turntable, but suffice it to say it’s a fun totable gadget if you want to travel with your records and play them at a friend’s place (or the park). It’s lightweight and easy to store, and there’s Bluetooth support, so you can play tunes from your phone if you’ve already gone through your records.

The Nimble Champ is our favorite portable charger. It’s super lightweight, but it packs a lot of power in a small package. Nimble uses bioplastics and minimal packaging to reduce its environmental impact. That’s also why we included it in our guide to the Best Upcycled and Recycled Products. This model has enough juice to charge most smartphones two or three times.

Nimble’s wireless charger is one of our top picks. The surface is made of recycled silicone, which attracts dust and lint, and it also keeps your phone securely in place. The rest of the charger is made with postconsumer plastic and alloy. This bundle includes a 20-watt wall charger.

Seljak Earth Blanket

Seljak Earth Blanket

Photograph: Seljak

Unfortunately, this sale is a result of Seljak shutting down. That means the company will not accept any returns. But you can save money, while supplies last, on the entire Earth Blanket collection. We love these blankets because of their warm and fun designs and because they’re made completely out of recycled materials.

The Lo & Sons Nouvelle (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is a recycled bag made from recycled nylon and polyester. It also uses nopal cactus instead of leather. It works dressed up or down, and there’s enough room for essentials like your phone, e-reader, and a random assortment of hair ties. (I can’t be the only one.)

Another one of our favorite recycled bags, this Targus is made from 20 recycled plastic water bottles. It arrives rolled up in a recycled plastic package. Unroll the package and place it in the laptop pocket to give the bag some more structure and protection.

Moment MTW Tote on purple backdrop

Moment Tech Tote

Photograph: Moment

Our favorite tote bag has a recycled nylon exterior. It has excellent weight distribution, and several inner pockets help you stay organized, including a dedicated spot for a 16-inch laptop. The top has a zip closure.

This bag is an honorable mention in our Best Laptop Backpack guide. It’s cavernous main compartment can zip shut, and it has a snap-closure fleece-lined outer pocket. Made of recycled nylon and polyester ripstop, the bag can be used as a tote or a backpack.

A smart thermostat helps can ensure you’re not wasting energy—or money. Your energy provider may sweeten this deal with a rebate. This isn’t the smartest thermostat Google makes, but you can still use the Google Home app to program a schedule to turn your heat down at night. The thermostat will also turn itself down when you leave, so you’re not wasting energy while you’re gone.

EcoFlow River 2

EcoFlow River 2 Pro

Photograph: EcoFlow

This is the most portable power station we’ve tested. Coming in at 17 pounds, with a large handle, it’s easy to move around. The battery has a 768-watt-hour capacity, and there are tons of ports for charging your gear, which makes the station great to have on hand for camping trips. It takes just over an hour to charge the station itself.

Fitness and Health Deals

Side view of black electric bike

Rad Power Ebikes

Photograph: Rad Power Bikes

The RadRunner 2 for $1,299 ($100 off) is our favorite pick of the bunch, but every iteration is on sale right now. We’ve seen the price drop lower before, but these deals are worth checking out if you’re in the market. The RadRunner 2 is one of our favorite cargo ebikes.

The Niu KQi3 Max (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is an alternative to our favorite electric kick scooter. It’s an upgraded version of the less-expensive KQi3 Pro, which is also on sale for $650 ($150 off). We like the Pro a little more, though the Max is better for folks who live in particularly hilly areas. These scooters offer great range for the money, but they’re on the heavy side.

This is a solid deal on the Heybike Tyson (6/10, WIRED Review). The comfortable fat-tire model made our list of the Best Cheap Electric Bikes. It’s quite heavy, coming in at 77 pounds, but it has a powerful 750-watt motor plus nifty features like a plush seat and a fully loaded dashboard.

Klean Kanteen Insulated Bottle

Klean Kanteen

Photograph: Amazon

The Klean Kanteen Classic Bottle is one of our favorite reusable water bottles, and it falls to $28 after entering the coupon code EARTH24. The coupon works on nearly everything, including the interchangeable caps if you want a straw or a spout instead of a twist-off lid.

This is our favorite menstrual cup. Menstrual cups are better for the planet than disposable tampons or pads, and this sale makes for a good time to try one out if you’ve been curious. The cup is thin and flexible, so it’s especially great for beginners.

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Trek Fetch+ 2 Review: A Solid, Though Expensive, Cargo Ebike

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One of the things that can be intimidating about buying a cargo ebike is how unfamiliar they feel. Whether a bike is designed with weird geometry and wheel sizes or odd features for heavy hauling, every ride can feel unfamiliar.

For traditional cyclists who want to haul a grocery store trip’s worth of groceries home but don’t want to mess with technology they’re unfamiliar with, the Trek Fetch+ 2 is a decent option. It’s more expensive than some of our favorite alternatives, but it has an easy-to-ride step-through design, well-made components, and great plastic buckets (and other accessories) for storage.

There are bikes with more advanced features for the money, but even after I spent a summer riding the Fetch+ 2, it barely needed a tune-up. For a modern cargo ebike with a classic cargo bike maintenance schedule, it might be worth spending a bit more cash.

On the Road

The Fetch+ 2 is the smaller of Trek’s two latest cargo ebikes, which includes the box-fronted Fetch+ 4 ($8,500), which is more oriented toward toting around dogs and children in between groceries and beer.

The Fetch+ 2 instead is a more traditional step-through cargo bike that employs a myriad of attachments, most notably two plastic panniers that hang off an extended rack on the rear. You can get a padded seat cover for the rear to let friends hold on and ride, or mount a couple kids’ seats behind you, but I’d still probably use this bike more for errands than transporting little ones.

Side view of black and silver bike with 2 containers attached near the rear wheel and 2 containers attached near the...

Photograph: Trek

As an objet d’art, the bike is simple and unassuming, which is ideal for a bike this expensive. The battery is integrated into the frame, but a sizable bulge means nobody will fail to notice it’s an ebike. You can get it in three colors. I liked the black of our review unit, but the bright blue would probably be my choice if I was buying one.

While much of the bike will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen or contemplated a cargo bike, Trek really gets the geometry and style of this bike correct as far as making it very usable for many tasks. Even the dual-sided kickstand pops up and down with remarkable ease (shockingly rare on other large ebikes I’ve used). I particularly enjoyed using the rear panniers for hauling flats of berries and other easily squished items that tend to rattle around in softer panniers.

The panniers fit a ton of stuff; I was able to get four full-size grocery bags spread between the two black plastic totes. I like that they had little plugs in the bottom that you could feasibly use a plastic bag to cover and then fill them with ice and drinks.

Trekkin’

I spent a couple months using the Fetch+ 2 as my primary bike, and came away much more impressed than anticipated, given the specs and the price.

On paper, this is an expensive ebike to have pretty standard mid-drive cargo bike specs. The 85 Nm Bosch motor and 500-wH battery are good for 20-plus miles a day loaded down in any city, but they’re not better than models like the larger Xtracycle Stoker, which has the same torque and a 630-wH battery for $4,999. The Trek also doesn’t have a carbon belt drive and variable transmission, which we consider the best (and easiest to maintain) shifting mechanism for cargo bikes.

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Audien Hearing Atom One Hearing Aid Review: Über-Cheap and Too Basic

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What the Atom One does do is make things louder—and by default, it makes all the things louder. Tuning is fairly blunt: A lone button on the back of each aid lets you cycle through five volume levels. Since the aids don’t talk to one another, each has to be controlled individually. The units also include three environmental modes that are designed respectively for conversation, noisy environments, and in-vehicle operation. To cycle through these—again, separately for each ear—you hold down the button on the back of each unit for a few seconds and wait for a lower frequency tone to alert you to which mode it has engaged.

If you’re prone to fiddling with hearing aids, you’ll probably accidentally hit the control button more than you’d like, inadvertently changing the volume and requiring you to cycle back through the five levels again to return to the volume you want. This is a bit of a pain, but a little hassle is perhaps to be expected at this price level.

As for performance, the amplification effect is, to put things plainly, rather blunt. Around the house, when at max volume, it sounded like everyone was screaming, and even the slightest sound was deafening. Typing this review with the aids in was nerve-racking, even at more moderate volumes, like tiny firecrackers popping beneath my fingers. My voice became an echoing boom from the heavens that drowned out everything else.

Eventually, I found better luck in more intimate environments at lower volume settings and was able to see some value in hearing television audio and one-on-one conversations with a modest amount of added clarity—but in busy, noisy environments, the Atom One couldn’t keep up. In a bowling alley test, the aids were effectively useless no matter how I configured them.

Ugly Hiss

In all mode settings and at all volumes, there’s ample background hiss that makes it feel a bit like you’re sitting on an airplane. I found it more difficult to concentrate with them in my ears even if I was in a silent room. Combined with the booming reports of keyboard taps, footsteps, and crinkling wrappers, I found the Atom One to be significantly more nerve-racking than I’d like. (Which is none at all.)

On aesthetics, I wouldn’t call the Atom One ugly—the mostly in-ear design is at least less obtrusive than behind-the-ear models—but the beige color palate doesn’t feel very modern. Perhaps this is something Walmart requested, but a more modern white or black earbud-like design would probably go over better with most wearers.

Small rounded closed case beside two beige incanal hearing aides

Photograph: Audien Hearing

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