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.