How to Clean Your House in an Environmentally Friendly Way
Modern chemical-based cleaning items have their major downsides. In addition to being costly, their use may pose a risk to your health. Careless disposal of these cleaning products may also prove to be harmful to the environment. Luckily, there is an array of eco-friendly cleaning options for keeping your whole house spotless.
Cleaning Bare Surfaces and Floors
The ideal natural cleaning option for most bare surfaces and floors is a solution of vinegar and water. All you need is a mop and 1 gallon of warm water mixed with ½ cup of vinegar, and you’re ready to start spring cleaning. This cleaning option helps in removing stains from linoleum, vinyl, ceramic tiles, and wooden floors.
However, be sure to avoid using vinegar on stone surfaces such as marble, limestone, and granite. It can be too acidic for these materials and cause damage.
If your hardwood floor looks a bit dull after mopping, you can add a shine using steep black tea. You need to be extra cautious not to saturate floors with a surface finish with your solution of water and vinegar. A light touch is all you need to remove built-up grease and make your floor sparkle. Otherwise, the floor shine will be lost from potential water damage.
Cleaning Inner Workings
Most people forget that a lot of time and effort spent in daily cleaning only covers a fraction of the whole house. There are inner workings to your home’s infrastructure that go completely unnoticed all year round. For instance, cooling and heating air ducts are hot spots for the buildup of grime and dirt.
One sure-fire sign of the accumulation of mold, dirt, and dust is the presence of a musty smell in the duct system. At this stage, cleaning your ducts is advisable to avoid the ill effects of breathing in impure air in your home. You can easily clean your ducts using a brush or a handheld vacuum cleaner.
Cleaning Metal Works
Metal polishes like copper, brass, chrome, and stainless steel frequently tarnish after exposure to air for a long time. Before gearing up to use harsh chemical cleaning items, you should try natural methods first. A mixture of salt, lemon juice, and cornstarch is all you need to get started.
By making a paste using equal amounts of these three household products, you can restore dull brass and copper antiques to their former glory. You should:
- Apply the homemade paste on a tarnished metal surface with a soft cloth.
- Gently polish the surface.
- Wipe all traces of the paste away with warm water and a mild soap.
For cleaning aluminum pots, bring a pot of water to a boil with 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar and 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar for every quart of water. Boil it all together for 10 minutes, then pour it out and let it cool. Lastly, rinse it out with dish soap.
Cleaning Clothes
Baking soda can be an awesome addition to the laundry room, among all other rooms in the home. Adding sodium bicarbonate serves to remove unpleasant smells, soften up your clothes, and brighten the colors.
You can avoid the dryer in favor of line drying if possible to lower your home’s energy consumption and cut down on costs. The heat can also alter the quality of your fabric and increase the rate of shrinkage and fading of color.
Cleaning Mirrors and Glasses
With ½ cup of white vinegar in ½ cup of water, you can choose to forget about using ammonia-based glass and window cleaners. Using rubbing alcohol can be equally as effective. One age-old window cleaning tip is the use of newspapers, which is an eco-friendly idea that lowers the use of paper towels and reuses a paper product you may already have on-hand. Lint-free rags are also an excellent alternative cleaning method.
Not only are these cleaning options for your floor, inner workings, metal works, furniture, and glasses eco-friendly, but they are also better for you. You can thus play your part in conserving the ecosystem while effectively carrying out spring cleaning.
