Surface cleaning preparations pose a serious threat to the environment. Toxicity of a pre-manufactured preparation SCP-1 was tested on bacteria, algae and higher plants and was expressed as a minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC). Obtained results showed that among unicellular and more complex test-organisms MIC values differed 10–100 fold suggesting that an application of complex test-organism battery is necessary to evaluate the toxicity of SCP-1 thoroughly. MIC values were different from the critical micelle concentration; this indicates that the SCP1 mechanism of action might not involve membrane disruption and/or destabilization.