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Be Clean and Green

Best Practices

Thursday, 05 March 2009 16:41

Part of being green is understanding your impact on the environment. Even things that you use to clean your house have the potential to be environmentally unfriendly. Peruse the list of chemicals that make up the standard mildew remover or oven cleaner and you will see what I mean.

Those products contain many unpronounceable chemicals. What is worse, they instruct you to wear rubber gloves and refrain from breathing the fumes. Scary right? Still, you need to clean your house and you want something that does the job effectively. Now, you can buy green cleaning products from the store. There are several different brands available. In order to make a decision about which green cleaning product is the best choice you need to read the ingredient list. An important thing to remember is that there is no standard in place for labeling green cleaning products. Therefore, the words green, non-toxic and eco friendly are pretty broad. What counts are the actual ingredients. If the ingredient list is full of chemicals, the term eco friendly is pretty meaningless. You should look for products that do not contain volatile organic chemicals (VOCs).

Your cleaner should not contain butyl cellosolve, bleach, petroleum products, or phthalates. The other important thing is you are paying more for a product labeled green, sometimes a lot more. With the economy as it is why, spend money for pricey green cleaners when you have green cleaners available to you. Yes, you can use common ingredients to make environmentally friendly cleaners. Most of the following cleaning products were used by our grandparents (and in some cases are still used by our grandparents). Some of them are as natural as you can get, but they work well. For example: Window wash: Mix 3 tablespoons vinegar with 2 cups of water (for large amount 1/2 cup vinegar to 1-gallon water) and spray right on your windows. Glass really does sparkle after you use vinegar. If you cannot stand the smell of vinegar, use fresh lemon juice or club soda. That‘s right you can spray club soda right on your window. Use newspaper, preferably recycled to wipe the window dry. Use a lint free cloth with the lemon juice.

All-purpose disinfectant: Mix 2 cups water, a few drops of natural soap (like Dr. Bronners), and 15 drops each of tea tree and lavender organic essential oil. This mixture safe to spray on any surface, except glass. Toilet Cleaner: Spritz your toilet bowl with vinegar, lemon juice, or spray on some of your all-purpose disinfectant then sprinkle with baking soda. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Scrub with toilet brush. This mix can be used on sinks and tubs as well. There are also several environmentally safe all-purpose cleaners on the market.

These cleaners can be used multiple ways giving you a good value for your dollar. Bon Ami- a polishing cleanser made with calcium carbonate it contains no perfume, dye or phosphorus and is biodegradable. You use it by sprinkling on a wet surface and scrubbing. Borax (popular brand 20 Mule Team) - a cleanser made with sodium tetra borate decahedra. It does not contain phosphates or chlorine. Again, sprinkle on wet surface and scrub. You can also use it in the laundry.

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