5 Sustainable ways to clean your house

It is becoming important, now more than ever, to use environmentally friendly cleaning products and equipments and to get rid of all the toxic ones to contribute towards a greener and cleaner home environment and fresher, non-toxic air. Clean air is an essential component in keeping us healthy and rejuvenated. A toxic-free home goes a long way in our well being, they improve sleep and concentration and is also good for the babies. Take a look at 5 ways of reducing the toxic burden on the environment from your household:

Greener ways to clean your house

1. The Poison under the kitchen sink

Under the kitchen sink

Remove those toxic products from under the kitchen sink. We all have them - the wasp sprays, waxes and polishes, all those things that display the words poison, warning and danger. The leakages from these bottles contribute to the slow household poisonings. They are also one of the major threats to the health of children.

2. Hazardous waste pick up day

Hazardous Waste pick up

We have a tendency of pouring anything and everything down the drain. Some hazardous materials are not supposed to be sent down the drain or thrown in the trash, they cause serious pollution problems down in the waste stream. Instead, call the local recycling centre or the city or town hall. Most communities generally have one Hazardous Waste Pickup day.

3. Substitute those toxic products

Locate the Toxic Products

The next step is to choose more non-toxic products and bio-degradable ones. It will help reduce the toxic burden on the environment from manufacturing, your home and the waste stream. Look for all the signal words like toxic, poison, danger and caution found on neurotoxic products and pesticides and try to replace them. They are primarily placed on the covers because of the potential harm they may cause to the environment. The words such as poison and danger are the most concerning ones. They are highly toxic and ingesting even tiny amounts can be extremely dangerous. Warning on the other hand may mean mildly toxic. There are other products which are highly corrosive to skin and mucous membranes.

4. The basics of non-toxic cleaning

Avoid Petroleum Products

It is important to know the basic ways of non-toxic cleaning and also to avoid using the valuable resources of the earth like pertroleum products which are non-renewable sources of energy. If you care to delve a bit into the chemistry of how materials work, you can easily learn to clean from scratch by making your own home-made recipes. Try and keep all of the home-made recipes well-labelled and out of the toddler's reach.

5. Sponges, mops, rags et al

Use Safer sponges

To further reduce the use of non-renewable sources of energy, you can avoid products that are made of potentially harmful ingredients such as sponges with antibacterial ingredients in them and also try and reuse old clothes like shirts as rags instead of paper towels to save trees. And yes, also save some money. Such things like safer sponges and rags instead of paper towels and HEPA vacuums all work towards providing a toxic free environment. Even if you use paper use recycled and unbleached ones.