Which is the best 'green' degreaser for mucky parts?

[cycletothesea]

Going through loads of degreaser in small 250ml bottles. It gets bloody expensive and I'm a compulsive cleaner & restorer of very grimy components. Does anybody have some recommendations for the absolute best degreaser - needs to be green, powerful, available in the UK, at least 1 litre and relatively cheap.

 

[konacarl]

Re:

I've taken to using Elbow Grease spray. It works very well and its really cheap compared to citrus degreasers.
Its good on car alloys as well and a lot less harmful than wonder wheels and the like.

https://www.therange.co.uk/household/cl ... BwE#270934

 

[rwm1962]

They do other sizes.

https://www.kingud.co.uk/product/citrus ... -5-litres/

 

[d8mok]

I use the citrus one from Halfords in a 1 litre bottle at £10. I’m yet to find a better one. Not the spray version .

 

[brocklanders023]

Re:

I 'borrow' something called Deepio from work. Comes in a powder and works a treat.

 

[michael franks]

I use the citrus one from Halfords in a 1 litre bottle at £10. I’m yet to find a better one. Not the spray version .

+1 for this one. A little goes a long way too

 

[Biospace]

Re:

If you're concerned about the environment, consider how 'green' any use-once degreasing agent is, as well as how green the grease is you're dissolving into the degreaser.

It's probably several times kinder to the environment to use kerosene and reuse it almost indefinitely by catching and storing the spills in a bottle to settle out.

Given a large proportion of the environmental harm will be caused by plastic packaging (both of the original grease then the degreaser), if you know of a local biodiesel producer it's cheap and you can use your own, reuseable container.

If veg oil works fine on chainsaws, it should also protect things well on a bicycle chain?

 

[Graham_hkr]

Re: Re:

If you're concerned about the environment, consider how 'green' any use-once degreasing agent is, as well as how green the grease is you're dissolving into the degreaser.

It's probably several times kinder to the environment to use kerosene and reuse it almost indefinitely by catching and storing the spills in a bottle to settle out.

Given a large proportion of the environmental harm will be caused by plastic packaging (both of the original grease then the degreaser), if you know of a local biodiesel producer it's cheap and you can use your own, reuseable container.

If veg oil works fine on chainsaws, it should also protect things well on a bicycle chain?

Chainsaw oil is a petroleum-based product, as chainsaws run's at hight speed the oil is vapourised & obviously bad for the environment & the user.
Vegetable oil when vapourised through a chainsaw causes no threat to the environment, however, used on bike chains it will just solidify & go sticky so will pick up all sorts of crap, so I wouldn't recommend it!

 

[Biospace]

Yup, now I've engaged the brain it's clearly not for bike chains - I should know better having used the stuff in place of diesel for years, with all the polymerized drips to prove.

It's a great lubricant (I've used it in place of 10w40 sump oil as well as for chainsaws) but completely unsuitable for extended exposure to the air.

 

[mk one]

Fenwicks FS-1