By John DeFore

If you can’t give up your car in your green-living efforts, can you at least wash it without harming the planet?

Some of us (this writer, for instance), let inertia answer that question: Don’t wash it at all, and pray that a growing layer of dirt will form a rust-resistant protective covering — or, just maybe, accumulate into a topsoil fertile enough to make the car literally green. But other drivers care about glossy paint jobs. For them, a new line of cleaners claims to spic-and-span your ride without leaving any harmful runoff.Produced by a company called Green Earth Technologies, G-Wash and its sister products claim to meet the “Ultimate Biodegradable” standards of the American Society for Testing and Materials; according to a press release, “GET uses nano technology and a proprietary process to transform American-grown base oils into a biodegradable material that is the base for all of its products.”

The line, which includes everything from a tire-shine compound to an anti-fog glass spray, is now being sold at Target, a dozen or so regional chains like Fred Meyer, and Amazon.com; most are priced in the $6-$10 range.

While the line’s newly produced TV ad borders on the repellent — perhaps hoping to ride the coattails of those shampoo ads that associate the word “organic” with sexual nirvana — and its slogan (”Save the Earth — Sacrifice Nothing”) is a big fat lie, we’ll give the company the benefit of the doubt and hope that the chemists on its development team are brighter, and more eco-aware, than the guys in marketing.

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