Clean Up With Green Cleaning

Before you panic and think I am going to give you a laundry list of things to buy, I assure you:

lemonI am going to give you a laundry list of things to buy.

  • Baking soda
  • White vinegar
  • Salt
  • Lemon (or lime in a pinch) juice
  • Water

Gotcha.

Going Natural is Cheap.

You do not have to go spend a fortune on “green cleaners” to clean your home with natural ingredients, which will, more often than not, give you better results than expensively packaged and marketed organic alternatives to your mother’s favorites.

Let’s look a just a few uses….

  •  Toilet bowl ring: Baking soda and vinegar will foam away most. Soda will scrub away rest.
  • Coffee pot brown: Lemon juice, ice (it is water), salt. Swirl in pot and rinse.
  • Scuff marks on kitchen floor: Baking soda and water. Gentle elbow grease.
  • Microwave disaster: Soda, water, vinegar and lemon juice.
  • Stove top spaghetti: Vinegar and warm water

How much would the branded cleaners cost you?

Box of baking soda: $0.86
Gallon of vinegar: $2.89
Lemon juice: $1.84
Salt: $1.24

Natural is cheap.

Going Natural is Good.

Let’s list a few of the benefits of natural choices over chemical ones.

  1.  No additional purchase. Most of these ingredients are already in your house or something you buy regularly. No wasted gas tripping to the store.
  2. No additional packaging. Reducing waste.
  3. No poison. If your pets or children get in your cleaning basket, you will not need the number to poison control in the event of consumption.
  4. No perfume. Cleaner air inside your home.
  5. No color. No natural ingredients are sacrificed for their color. No added chemicals.
  6. No conflict. Most every surface in your house may be cleaned with one or a combination of the above. Do take care with the abrasive qualities of salt and soda and the bleaching ability of salt.
  7. Food safe. You can use salt to bleach spots from your cutting boards, pots and dishes without any harmful chemicals.

Going Natural is Green.

You are already reducing (waste and packaging) by choosing natural. Let’s close the recycling loop.

Recycle the packages from what you use. Lemon juice and vinegar both come in recyclable plastic bottles. Baking soda and salt both come in cardboard or fiber board packages which are 100% recyclable and may well already contain post-consumer content.

How do you incorporate “reuse” in green cleaning? Use newspaper to clean your windows before you recycle it. Read the paper online? Your mailbox is stuffed (like everyone else’s) with newsprint ads for the local groceries and businesses.

Use a vinegar bottle to carry water in your cleaning basket. Premix salt water in a lemon juice bottle (Be sure to mark it!).

Before you recycle it, reuse it!

A little more Green from…

~~~~~~~~~~

© Red Dwyer 2011
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9 Comments

  1. James Parsons

     /  November 7, 2011

    these items really do work when mixed properly and used with care. you will truly be surprised to see the amazing job they do when cleaning your kitchen,stove top and microwave. I have seen these products in action, they leave your appliances in great shape and without scratches. keep these idea’s coming

    Reply
  2. LOVE this article. Thanks for posting it. I super lurv green-related articles. Now I feel like a dum-dum for buying the green cleaners (not as stupid though as if I bought the regular stuff, which I have not for AGES).

    I’m going to bookmark this!

    Reply
    • Do smash the follow button! You will find most all of my posts about saving green are equally as blue and green as they are thrifty. I plan on my great-great grandchildren having a decent planet to inherit. And you are not a dum-dum…Just think, you are the first of your friends to know the secret! Share it so you are the brainy one! Thanks, Karen!

      Reply
  3. I have just discovered the many uses of white vinegar! You should add it to your list!

    Reply
    • oops..I guess you do have it on there! Great post. I’ll have to try the lemon juice and salt!

      Reply
      • Yes, it is a wonderful cleaner for all manner of things. Great rule of thumb: Every place you can use ammonia, vinegar will work. I am allergic to ammonia, so I had to have an alternative…that would not peel the skin off my hands! I will be posting about the many savings of baking soda in the saving in the house series.

        Reply
  4. Every time I use ice and salt to clean my coffee pot because you know I don’t want soapy tasting coffee, I get asked if I realize this isn’t a restaurant. This reminds me I need to clean the maker, that’s the part I dread the most.
    Laurie recently posted..Changes in Hope of SimplicityMy Profile

    Reply
    • Do it the easy way. Start the water with a cup of vinegar. After you run it, run two of just plain water. If the second pot just tastes like hot water, it is completely clean. 😉

      Reply

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