If you want to clean up messes and keep your home looking and smelling fresh, don’t feel as if you must resort to strong cleaners with strange chemicals. House cleaning can be tackled with simple, natural ingredients that you likely already have in your cupboards. There are also alternative methods to handling housework that involve making more eco-friendly changes to your routine.
Keep a green living space with these environmentally conscious tips for cleaning. Try to work these habits into your cleaning preparation and routine.
1. Buy Green
Although there are many natural products already in your cupboards, if you are going to buy cleaning products, you might as well go green. Throw out your old bottles filled with toxic chemicals and stock up with cleaners like Clorox Green Works, which boasts 95 percent natural ingredients, or similar products. Scan the labels for natural ingredients like limonene or saponin.
2. Clean with Vinegar
Vinegar has a number of handy uses, and cleaning is one of them. A distilled vinegar solution can be poured in a spray bottle and used to kill germs on your kitchen and bathroom surfaces. Mix vinegar with water, spray the solution on the surface you wish to clean, and wipe with a cloth to clear up grease and dirt, leaving a nice shine behind.
3. Freshen Air Naturally
Instead of spritzing artificial odors loaded with chemicals all over your living room, try to keep your home fresh the natural way with real greenery. House plants like English ivy, spider plants, and peace lilies, as well as bundles of cinnamon, freshen up your indoor air with natural filtering. Place them in attractive pots and vases and add to your home’s décor.
4. Employ Natural Lighting
There’s no need to leave all the lights in your house on when the sun is out and the sky is bright. Save energy and money spent on your electric bill by keeping your light switches off and your curtains sheer. Arrange your curtains with rope binds to pull them back and expose the natural sunshine into your living room and kitchen. You can still navigate your household without hurting the environment with wasteful energy consumption.
Essential Oils Keep Things Fresh
There are many uses for essential oils. It turns out one of them is cleaning and killing germs! Many different essential oils are great for cleaning, leaving behind a pleasant and natural scent. Tea tree, lemon, peppermint and cinnamon oil all have antibacterial and antiviral properties that make them perfect for wiping down kitchen and bathroom counters.
Hydrogen Peroxide Solution
Many are probably familiar with hydrogen peroxide as a disinfectant for abrasions, but those antibacterial properties are great for your home’s surfaces as well. It’s quite strong, so dilute the liquid first by mixing it with one part water or dish soap. This solution can be used to dab on laundry stains, toilets, and floor tiles in both kitchens and bathrooms.
7. Shine with Olive Oil
Stainless steel kitchen appliances can be such a pain to clean and shine, ridding them of all those smudges and fingerprints that build up over time. Olive oil is incredibly useful and eco-friendly for this purpose. Cover a microfiber cloth with some olive oil (don’t drench it – only a small amount is needed) and wipe down your stainless steel. Your appliances will gleam smudge-free.
Cloth, Not Paper Towels
After cleaning up the bathroom with a roll of paper towels, your garbage is likely filled with wasted paper product. This garbage takes up space in your local landfill. Avoid this problem by substituting paper towels for cloth rags. These cleaning rags can be purchased at a store, or you can just reuse old shirts.
