10 Quick Tips to Green Cleaning

By Jeffrey Hollender, President of Seventh Generation

It’s easy to find natural ways to clean your home. Here’s my quick Top 10 list:

1. Use cleaning products made from safe natural and not-toxic ingredients to prevent exposure to the hazardous synthetic chemicals conventional cleaners often contain.

2. Dust with a damp cloth to ensure that household dust, which can collect toxins, is removed from surfaces and not stirred back into the air.

3. Open windows and doors occasionally (even in winter!) to rinse out any air pollutants that have accumulated inside.

4. Spray carefully. Propellant-powered aerosol spray products release their ingredients in the form of easily-breathable microscopic droplets that stay suspended in the air for hours after use. Better bets are hand-powered spray products or those you can apply with a sponge or rag.

6. Use baking soda. Freshen everything from carpets and cat boxes to trash cans and drains with non-toxic baking soda. Just sprinkle, let stand overnight, and vacuum or rinse odors away the next day.

7. Warm water can be best. Synthetic chemicals and other pollutants often accumulate unseen on the surfaces you are cleaning. Since hot water easily turns many of these substances into vapor.

8. Use chlorine-free dishwasher detergent. The chlorine in conventional detergents is easily vaporized by hot dishwasher water and then released into your home’s air.

9. Ask guests to remove their shoes when entering your home. That way, they won’t track in pollutants.

10. Buy a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter. These special filters trap unhealthy dust particles.

Jeffrey has led Seventh Generation from its humble beginnings to its current position as the leading and fastest-growing brand of natural products for the home, and the leading authority on issues related to making a positive difference in the health of the planet and its inhabitants through our everyday choices.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Julie B.

10:11AM PST on Jan 29, 2012

I hope this is "green" . . . I use a generic Alkaseltzer, crushed and followed by 1/2 C water as a drain cleaner. Used about once a month keeps up with whatever goes down there!

January 29
send a green star

Khristi N.

10:38AM PST on Dec 11, 2011

The less chemicals, the better! Thanks.

December 11
send a green star

Michele W.

2:05PM PDT on Jun 30, 2011

Thank you

June 30
send a green star

2:03PM PDT on Jun 30, 2011

Thanks

Past Member .

7:22AM PDT on Jun 10, 2011

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to be invalid which is clearly not the case. If your read the article,
it states that protecting broad concepts is not likely to be patentable.
Yet specific kabin processses that are innovative, buildable and provable
technically will still prefabrik villa be upheld. Be a little bit more
careful with film indir your reporting.

June 10
send a green star

John S.

4:07PM PDT on May 19, 2011

I'm surprised so many people use vinegar, I like 100% pure, 200 proof, ethyl alcohol and distilled water. But, sometimes I use vodka, and if I drink enough, I don't care about the dirt.

May 19
send a green star

Karolina Z.

2:26PM PDT on Sep 12, 2010

Awesome article, thanks for sharing the tips! About time we look past the brainwashing commercials, telling us to sterilize and bleach everything in sight, in order to live a healthy life! There was no such thing as Clorox a hundred years ago, and people were actually healthier! We need to stop feeding into the sanitizing culture, and understand that the cleaning product companies are telling us certain lies, just to make money!!! Simple as that. If germs really killed, there wouldn't be many of us left... So be smart, and use common sense. Nothing's being said without a reason (money makes the world turn)...