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What should you have on hand if you want to start cooking up your own green cleaning? Main says there are eight main products that can clean most anything: baking soda, borax, white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, lemon juice, olive oil, castile soap and washing soda. Main recommends Dr. Bronner’s castile soaps. Washing soda is less common than the other ingredients, but it can sometimes be found near the baking soda or in the laundry aisle. Arm & Hammer is one manufacturers of washing soda, and it can sometimes be found in smaller brand names, as well.
| | | |  | |  | | | | | Cook Up a Green Cleaner Cooking up a greener cleaner isn’t as difficult as you might think. With a few basic ingredients from your pantry, you can keep your house clean and green. Try these easy-to-make recipes from Holly Miller, a Chesapeake, Va.-based environmental educator, to tackle tough spots. - All-purpose cleaner. Miller says vinegar and salt mixed together make a good surface cleaner. Also, dissolve 4 Tbsp. baking soda in a quart of warm water, or try straight baking soda on a damp sponge for a tougher scrub.
- Drain cleaner. Replacing drain cleaners is one of the best moves you can make during a green cleaning makeover. To unclog gunky drains naturally, Miller says to pour a 1/2 cup of baking soda down the drain and follow with a 1/2 cup of vinegar and cover the opening, if possible. Let it sit for a few minutes, then pour a kettle full of boiling water down the drain. Another option: Try pouring a can of soda down the drain.
- Decals and adhesives. Here’s another spot where vinegar does its acidic magic. Miller says to saturate a sponge with hot vinegar and squeeze over no-slip decals on the bathtub floor or behind adhesive-backed hooks to pry them loose. She says vinegar also removes decals, stickers and price tags from china, glass and wood. Slather the sticky area with white vinegar, let it sit for a few minutes, then rub off the sticker or decal.
| | | | | | | | | | | If it all sounds too simple, it really isn’t. “People think they need a lot of different cleaners when they really don’t,” Main says. “One good all-purpose cleaner will do the job as well as 20 individual cleaners.”
You can find many recipes online if you’re not sure where to use a particular product, including this fairly comprehensive listing from Women’s Voices for the Earth.
Smart Shopping
If you don’t want to make your own cleaners, you can buy greener cleaning products commercially. “Brands like Clorox Green Works and Method are sold at most stores,” says Main, who also recommends more traditional green brands like Seventh Generation, Biokleen, Ecover and Dr. Bronner’s.
Finally, beware of “greenwashing” when shopping for cleaners. Because more people than ever are looking to clean in a healthier way, companies may label their products to appear greener than they actually are and, because companies aren’t required by law to list the ingredients in their product, it can be tough to tell what’s really better and what’s just the same old product. For more information on “Greenwashing,” check out this article.
“There are a couple of terms we really caution against,” Main says. “’Biodegradable,’ ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘natural’—these terms are meaningless. We recommend people look for what’s not in a cleaner instead. Look for labels that say things like ‘no chlorine bleach’ or ‘no synthetic fragrances or dyes.’ ”
Another good barometer of a cleaner’s green credentials are third-party certifications. “Look for products that are endorsed by a credible third party like Green Seal, Cradle to Cradle or the Environmental Protection Agency’s Design for Environment Program (DfE),” Bongiorno says.
Even if some of these commercial products may be a little more expensive than the traditional ones you’re accustomed to buying, consider the bigger picture. “Habit and cost may seem like obstacles to cleaning green, but at what expense to our health?” says Pyun. “You can make a positive impact on the health of your family—and Mother Earth—by using greener cleaning products.”
For information on green cleaning outdoors, check out this article.
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Text by Alyson McNutt English
© 2008 BobVila.com
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