After the Swiffer Mop and Before the Vinegar

After the vinegar!

So I’m cleaning my apartment for the in-laws’ holiday visit and my kitchen’s tile grout looks filthy.  I use my Swiffer mop and then scrub with Clorox (the new Green Works version available in stores) to no avail.  In desperation, I seek google’s sound advice.  The solution (literally)?  One part vinegar one part water or a little baking soda paste.  It sounds homey and environmentally friendly and inexpensive, but does it really work?  Just look at the before and after pictures above!

When picking out cleaning products I try to moderate between price and environmental efficacy, so I have an assortment of ‘green’ cleaning products in my apartment.  Some work, some don’t.  But what seems to be most puzzling as peruse my way through all of the cleaning products I own is why have cleaning products in the first place?  Nearly everything I clean, as I think about it, could be easily cleaned with three fully biodegradable, non-toxic household items: lemon juice, vinegar, and baking soda.  The Do-it-yourself website, has a new Going Green topic on its side menu, has a great article called How to Clean Green which lists several recipes for green cleaners. Here are two easy and useful examples:

Carpet Spot Remover
•Cornstarch or baking soda
•Club soda
Blot the spot and apply baking soda or cornstarch immediately. When dry, blot with club soda and vacuum.

Glass Cleaner
•1 cup rubbing alcohol (optional)
•1 cup water
•1 tablespoon vinegar
Combine in a spray bottle and wipe clean with a newspaper. Alcohol hastens evaporation to prevent streaking.

And now, what about everything else.  Hand, dish and laundry soap, for example, isn’t as easy to make from scratch.  I personally suggest buying these products, unless you’re exceptionally handy, crafty an organized. Here are a few of my personal favorites and professional suggestions:

•Method brand soaps, as cliche as they sound, are easy to buy anywhere, use biodegradable ingredients, do not test on animals, use recycled and recyclable packaging materials and make use of government issued carbon-credits for their employee’s transportation and manufacturing process.  Plus, they’re smell great and come in cool-looking bottles!
•I use Green Works dishwashing liquid (water lily scent). It carries the Design for the Environment (DfE) certification, meaning the EPA screens all the ingredients put into the product and markets with the Sierra Club to endorse the ideas of preserving and protecting the planet. You want to hear the kicker? Green Works was created by Clorox! Proof that you don’t have to be anti-institution in order to be an environmentalist.
•For my wood flooring, I use Murphy’s soap; its biodegradable, kosher, cheap, and the bottles are recyclable.

•And finally, I suggested ECOS All Natural Laundry Detergent.  Its HE compatible, smells great, has a soy-based built-in fabric softener, and is grey-water safe (meaning you could use the left over water for your vegetable garden).  All this and it was on sale at Kroger’s!

As for my kitchen cleaning, my in-laws arrive tomorrow and I’m feeling pleased with my greening and cleaning! Word to the wise, you may want to use these cleaning solutions barefoot – its more comfortable and the grime from your shoes won’t be washed onto your newly cleaned tile!  Happy green cleaning!

Can you get a breath of fresh air indoors as well as outdoors? The Environmental Protection Agency says “yes” if a few guidelines and reminders help us along. From their online booklet:

People also react very differently to exposure to indoor air pollutants. Further research is needed to better understand which health effects occur after exposure to the average pollutant concentrations found in homes and which occur from the higher concentrations that occur for short periods of time.

But Mark Palmer asks in his article Too hot for your own good if overly warmed air indoors detracts from overall well-being. Reading the article, I am inclined to agree. In his case, it began with a “he said / she said” debate about the bedroom thermostat! Next, we begin to realize that humans adapted first to cold weather by wearing clothing – layers of clothing. (Mr. Palmer also says we can layer our favorite but unsightly clothing pieces deep underneath where no one else will be the wiser!)

There is something immeasurably satisfying about living in a big city, as I do, and experiencing the weather more or less as it is.

Where I live, outdoors in the daytime is only about 30-40 degrees F. lower than the usual indoor temperature of about 72 degrees F. Anecdotally, I notice that it does bother my asthma tendencies when I go from cold to hot air as I enter and exit buildings. It helps me most if I wear quite warm head covering with a rather lighter coat – perhaps a double layer hat/scarf combo with a breezy shawl or something fleecy. A study out of my hometown (Louisville, KY) suggests that airway cooling followed by rapid rewarming caused by bronchial hyperemia leads to airway wall edema and bronchoconstriction. Many patients are left with limitations in their ability to exercise, particularly in cold weather, and some patients prefer minimizing pharmacologic approaches to treatment.

I was interested to find a study that has data to show that in a rural population children of families using wood or coal for heating and cooking had a significant lower prevalence of hay fever, atopy, and bronchial hyperresponsiveness than children living in homes with other heating systems. Using coal and wood burning stoves indoors may be related to a more traditional life style with unknown protective factors that have been lost in families using other sources of energy such as gas, oil, or a central heating system.