Green Cleaning

Have you looked under your sink lately? What do you see? A sea of endless bottles and containers of cleaning products that promise to clean. Items that will whiten your toilets, brighten your bathtubs, clean soap scum and mildew off of showers and sinks. What you really need to ask yourself is, "what do these products really contain and how safe are they for me and my family?"

If you carefully examine the labels, you will find that many of these products contain harmful chemicals such as chlorine bleach, ammonia, petrochemicals, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Breathing in these chemicals can be damaging to your health while providing poor air quality throughout your home, the same air that you breathe every day. These same chemicals are being flushed and washed down our water systems, creating havoc to the environment.

It’s time to return to the basics, a time before commercialization when our grandparents and their parents before them used products directly from the kitchen cupboard to clean the house. There are simple and inexpensive solutions that will provide a healthier home for your loved ones as well protect the environment for future generations.

You only need a few simple ingredients for everyday cleaning. These items are just as effective as the toxic cleaning products on the market today. Ingredients such as: baking soda, borax, distilled white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, lemons, olive oil, and soda water. If you want to add a fragrance, just a few drops of lavender, lemon or peppermint oil will do the trick. Make a paste with baking soda and water for those tough cleaning jobs in the bathroom. Combine vinegar and water for a general purpose cleaner. Olive oil and lemon juice can be used for furniture polish.

And, if you don’t want the hassle of making your own cleaners, visit my Green Irene site below for vinegar based cleaners that will leave your home sparkling clean and smelling fresh which are inexpensive and safe for your family and the environment. As always, keep it simple and cheap.

The Green Scene

Going green. . .we have all heard these 2 words for some time now. . .but what does this green scene really mean? Saving the planet for future generations? A complete change of lifestyle? Spending a lot of money modifying the way you live and things you buy?

One basic definition is to become environmentally conscious of your decisions and to understand how the choices and purchases you make today will impact our planet tomorrow. I know what some of you are thinking. . . I like my life the way it is! How can I alone make a difference? This sounds expensive. I can't afford these changes.

I am here to tell you that "going green" does not have to be expensive. With a little thought and effort, there are ways to modify your lifestyle without spending a lot of "green" to do it. Short term, some changes may require an up front investment; but long term, these changes will in turn save you the GREEN.

Each week I will provide a different topic for greening your lifestyle. Let me know if there is a particular topic or area you are interested in greening on the cheap.