Green Sheet

Cleaning for a Better World

Your home is a sacred space for rest, relaxation, raising family, entertaining, and more. Keeping a home clean with all those activities can be overwhelming. Many people reach for powerful chemicals to help them keep their homes clean and odor-free. Others make choices to use environmentally-friendly products.

As a professional home cleaner, I have noticed people buy new products like Simple Green, Citra-solv, Seventh Generation, and Dr. Bronners, but keep their old products and don't completely commit to being environmentally sound. Under kitchen sinks and tucked away in bathroom showers, I see bleach sprays and harsh, toxic cleansers. Other toxic products are furniture polish, drain cleaner, laundry detergent, oven cleaner, disinfectants, toilet bowl cleaner, air freshener, and carpet shampoo.

Effective cleaning need not involve toxic chemicals. For instance, it's true that a number-one problem for homeowners is mold and mildew in baths and showers. I tell my clients that this is not a cleaning problem, but a structural problem. The solution is to keep tubs and showers dry after use and use the recipe provided later in this article.

This summer, homeowners should think about proper disposal of their old products and continue using the new ones. Still, some of the products marked as environmentally safe or biodegradable are not as eco-friendly as they seem, or don't state the product is readily biodegradable. There are many basic ingredients you can use to clean with, and if you take the time to make them, you can actually save money. Baking soda, vinegar, water, salt, and lemon juice can make cleaning easy. Essential oils smell wonderful, and most are antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal, and some are all three.

Don't forget that it's the scrubbing that gets surfaces clean, not necessarily chemicals or cleansers. You might be used to a product's pine or orange scent to convince you your home is clean! Trust yourself and use materials like green scratch pads and a scrub brush with bristles.

Here's how to do your floors. Buy several white bar towels at your local grocery. Pick up a janitorial mop at a discount or hardware store. It should have a triangular piece of metal at the end and a wing nut to tighten in a towel at the end. Pour some all-purpose cleaner on your towel in the sink, then put it in the mop handle. You can refold the towel as it gets dirty. There is no need for a bucket and you won't have to spend a fortune on sponges. Wash the towels for reuse.

As for the old household hazardous waste products under your sinks, don't flush them down the toilet, tub, or sink. It may contaminate the water supply. Don't dump them on the ground, or throw them away with the regular trash, and don't store them where children or pets can reach them. Read the labels to see how you should store them and how to dispose of them. You can also visit the Solid Waste Authority's Web site at www.swaco.org. It lists dates and locations of solid waste disposal drives in the Columbus area.

Lori Abel is the owner and sole operator of Karma Clean. You can contact her at (614) 352-9691 or by e-mail: merigoldconductor@hotmail.com.