Dear Mrs. Greengenes,
With Earth Day fresh in my mind, I want to learn more about cleaning without toxins and harsh chemicals. My two children have allergies and asthma, and I often wonder if my cleaning agents increase their symptoms. Finally, the high-end, earth-friendly cleaners do not fit in my budget. Can you advise me?
Clean, Concerned and Frugal
Dear Clean,
Asthma is becoming more and more widespread. According to Jeffrey Hollender et alNaturally Clean, nearly 1 in 13 children have asthma. The result is 14 million missed school days and $3.2 billion in medical costs yearly. Mold and dust mites are common household causes. Products with toxic ingredients can exaggerate or even potentially cause these symptoms.
Companies are not required by law to fully disclose the chemical ingredients in cleaning products or the potential health problems they might cause. We are left to fend for ourselves in figuring out what is safe and healthy for our homes and families.
The book I’m reading now, Green Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck, offers just what you need and much more. Let’s look at the negatives, the positives and some tips.
Detergents are often toxic. Common household cleaners frequently contain toxic ingredients or byproducts.
Soaps with animal fats cause soap scum buildup, which is hard to remove, when they mix with water. Look for labels that say “No Animal Fats” or list vegetable oils as ingredients.
Finally, molds and mildew, caused by persistent dampness, can be an on-going problem that creates respiratory illnesses.
In spite of these negatives, positives do exist.
One simple way to clean the air is having houseplants. In his book, Hollender names Boston Fern, Areca Palm and Lady Palm as the top three air purifiers. Rooms with these plants usually have 50% to 60% fewer mold spores and bacteria.
Castile soap dissolves easier than regular soap and doesn’t cause soap scum buildup. There’s less scrubbing at clean-up time. Some castile soaps are made with food-grade olive and coconut oils. Check with your local, natural food co-op.
Hard water deposits can be softened by soaking a clean rag in white vinegar and putting the cloth on the deposit for a couple of hours. Rub the deposit away with a wet cloth. Then dry. Sandbeck suggests that a cheap vodka used full strength will slow the mold’s return.
Hair and grease are two common drain cloggers. A mesh strainer that sits in the drain is a helpful tool for trapping hair and food and preventing clogged drains. According to Sandbeck, hardware stores sell a tool specifically for removing hair from drains. If you have a drain snake, that would work as well. A grease clog often responds to ½ cup of baking soda followed by a cup of white vinegar in the drain. Pour a kettleful of boiling water down the drain when the fizzing stops. It’s time for the drain snake tool if the clog persists.
To reduce the risk of asthma, allergies, lung infections and worse, use only steam vaporizers and evaporative humidifiers. Clean them daily with full strength hydrogen peroxide. Allow them to dry completely. Refill with distilled or demineralized water only. Lack of daily cleaning, and the extra moisture in the air, may encourage the very same respiratory ailments you’re trying to eliminate. Check with your respiratory specialist. Without daily care they may do more harm than good.
Molds and mildew need moisture to grow. Wash damp kitchen cloths frequently. Full strength white vinegar removes most mildew. Dip an old toothbrush in a water/borax paste to get mildew out of grout or off walls.
The following tips will allow you to reduce or discontinue the use of toilet bowl cleaners, sponges, vinyl shower curtains, air fresheners, and glass, metal and rust cleaners, which are often toxic:
- White vinegar cleans a toilet. Use a spray bottle, a dampened cloth and a toilet bowl brush.
- Replace your sponge with a mesh orange or onion bag. (According to Sandbeck, the sponge is a playground for E. coli, salmonella, pseudomonas, and staphylococcus.) Cut the label end off the mesh bag, creating a tube. Fold a 12” square dish cloth in half and place it inside the tube. Fold the mesh and cloth to a comfortable size for scrubbing. Use for glassware, pots and countertops. Launder the cloth frequently.
- For kitchen cleaning, white vinegar and hydrogen peroxide tackle most jobs. Have a spray bottle of each handy.
- Use rags, lots of them. Old cloth diapers and t-shirt remnants are lint free and can be cut to size. When you’re cleaning the floor, putting a dirty rag into a bucket of clean water makes dirty water. For your family’s health, put only clean rags in your clean water.
- To avoid food contamination, use wooden cutting boards. They don’t incubate bacteria like plastic boards do. Use one for meat and another for produce, or prepare fresh produce before working with raw meat. Clean with hydrogen peroxide.
- A polyester/nylon shower curtain dries quickly and doesn’t encourage mildew.
- You’re more likely to clean if the supplies are right where you need them.
- Open your house to outside air whenever you can tolerate the pollen level. In rural areas, indoor air is 2-5 times more polluted than outside air.
- Lighting a match deodorizes a room more healthfully than air fresheners.
Fortunately, we don’t have to choose between healthy, rigorous cleaning or toxic, easy cleaning. Simple, cost-effective, non-toxic ways to tackle cleaning do exist.
Resources:
Green Housekeeping, Ellen Sandbeck, Scribner, 2008, $16.00.
Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy, Non-toxic Cleaning, Jeffrey Hollender et al. New Society Publishers, 2005. $17.95.
www.drbronner.com
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