Rethink Your Cleaning
It’s time we change our cleaning routines and stop relying on toxic chemicals. The alternatives mentioned below are not only healthier for our families and environment, but our wallets too.
Here are some tips to get started:
Here are some tips to get started:
- Make your transition slowly. Replace your commercial cleaners with a homemade substitute as you run out of each one. Be sure to mix up the new cleaner as soon as you run out of the commercial one so that it will be on hand and ready to use when you need it.
- Store your cleaners in reusable airtight containers such as spray bottles or recycled milk jugs. Be sure to label each container with the ingredients and purpose.
- For the bar soaps required in the recipes below, try Fels-Naptha, Ivory soap, Sunlight bar soap, Kirk’s Hardwater Castile, and Zote. Don’t use heavily perfumed soaps.
- Americans generate over 38 million tons of hazardous waste per year.
- Chemical manufacturing accounts for 21 million tons (55%) of the hazardous waste.
- Commercial cleaning companies are under no legal obligation to research how their products might harm human health.
- 1 out of every 3 chemical cleaning products contains ingredients known to cause human health or environmental problems.
- Household cleaning substances are the second most common reason for pediatric exposure to poison.
- 51% of the human exposures to poison in 2006 involved children under 6 years old.
Expense: Make your own laundry detergent and wash for less than 1 cent per load. Chemical household cleaners cost about $4 for a 32oz bottle where 32oz of a homemade cleaner costs just over $1.
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle – REDUCE the amount of chemicals you use in and around your home. REUSE your old spray bottles and containers to make your own.
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle – REDUCE the amount of chemicals you use in and around your home. REUSE your old spray bottles and containers to make your own.