photo by Bianca de Blok
Cleaning products are up there on the list of “things I hate to spend $$ on” — they come in a close second to toilet paper. So basically any type of green home remedy I can make in place of buying conventional cleaning products is great in my book! They’re always cheaper than what I could buy at the store and healthier. I also get a kick out of knowing that what I clean my sink with also helps to bake cookies (like baking soda)!
Recently I came across this great website run by the Allergy and Environmental Health Association of Ottawa (scroll down to Safe Alternatives to Common Household Products) with all of the formulas for green cleaning that you could possibly want. I’ve never seen such a comprehensive list of formulas.
Here a few that I hadn’t seen elsewhere:
Rug or carpet cleaner: 2 cup cornmeal + 1 cup borax – sprinkle, leave for about 1 hour then vacuum
Tub/tile cleaner: ½ cup of baking soda + ½ up of white vinegar, or drop 1000mg Vitamin C, leave overnight then scrub
Silver polish: place in container: 1 quart warm water + 1 tbspn baking soda + 1 tbspn salt + piece of aluminum foil
Antibacterial spray: Add tea tree oil to vinegar/water solutions and spray on mold
Roach repellent: chopped bay leaves + cucumber skins or place borax in cracks
Drain cleaner ½ cup of white vinegar + ½ cup of baking soda. Cover tightly 1 minute then flush. Next ½ cup of salt + ½ cup of baking soda + 6 cups boiling water. Let sit several hours then flush with water.
We recently switched to cloth TP…were already doing this for our baby and realized how easy it would be for us too…just bought hemp wipes from Better for Babies.com and a small wet bag in each bathroom (have an extra onhand for each bathroom for wash days)…just put the little wipe in the bag when done and every couple of days dump bag (and wet bag too) into a cold rinse, then HOT wash w/ some tea tree, vinegar, and natural detergent and line dry if possible…Easy as pie and no more buying paper TP!
05/29/08 » 7:47 am »