Going Green: How To Switch To Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products

Every­one in the world today is aware of the pre­car­i­ous state of the envi­ron­ment. Most folks are keen to do their part to lessen our impact on the plan­et, but know­ing what that part is and how to imple­ment it, can be tricky. One way you can help is by switch­ing out the clean­ing prod­ucts you’ve got stored in the pantry or under the kitchen sink for an array of envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly products. It doesn’t have to be done in one fell swoop, nor do you have to make the prod­ucts your­self. You can make the change grad­u­al­ly, as you learn about what works on which sur­face in your home, and lat­er con­sid­er prepar­ing the prod­ucts yourself. We have some ideas for you on this front, sug­ges­tions about how you can do two vital things in the bat­tle for a clean­er envi­ron­ment: First, stop putting tox­ic chem­i­cals into the earth and in the water (which is what we do, let’s be hon­est, every time we use bleach to clean the bath­room). And, sec­ond, start using prod­ucts that cause no harm to the soil, the air, or the water. It is the very least we can do for our chil­dren, right? And our grand­chil­dren, who may, at the rate things are going, inher­it an almost unin­hab­it­able plan­et by 2050, accord­ing to experts. So, let’s get on with the sub­ject of help­ing, not hin­der­ing, our earth’s health and well-being. 

1- Stop Using Air Fresheners & Open The Windows

Let­ting fresh air blow into your home is one way to lessen yucky pet smells and oth­er odors. Instead of mask­ing those smells with arti­fi­cial ones, like a flo­ral or laven­der air fresh­en­er, sim­ply open the win­dows and let in the breeze. This reduces dust as well as strong odors.  If you aren’t in a high-rise apart­ment with sealed win­dows, crank them as wide open as you can and let Moth­er Nature work her magic!

2- Choose Manufactured Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products

If you don’t have the time to mix up your own solu­tions, or you aren’t inclined to do so at the moment, not to wor­ry; plen­ty of man­u­fac­tur­ers are now mak­ing and sell­ing envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly prod­ucts of their own. Busi­ness­es read con­sumer trends and study their spend­ing habits, and they know that their cus­tomers want to choose clean­ing solu­tions that don’t neg­a­tive­ly impact the plan­et. Rather than leav­ing their cus­tomers to “fend for them­selves” and lose mar­ket share, these com­pa­nies now offer a wide range of prod­ucts, every­thing from bath­room tile scrubs to laun­dry deter­gent, that are free of tox­ic chemicals.

3- Replace Your Current Supply Slowly

If you’re hes­i­tat­ing about mak­ing the switch because you’re unsure how eco-friend­ly prod­ucts per­form, you need to start slow­ly. When you run out of one item – an all-pur­pose clean­er, for exam­ple – choose to replace it with a store-bought prod­uct that’s cer­ti­fied eco-friendly. Or make your own and see if you’re pleased with its per­for­mance. Recipes for home­made cleansers abound online, but if you’ve got white vine­gar, bak­ing soda and fresh lemons at home, you’ve got the ingre­di­ents of a ter­rif­ic all-pur­pose clean­ing solu­tion on hand.

4- Remember: This Isn’t Just About Using Safer Products

It is also impor­tant that you stop using cer­tain prod­ucts com­plete­ly. Bleach sales are plum­met­ing, for exam­ple, because peo­ple are so much more aware of the dam­age it does to the envi­ron­ment. Rather than using it on laun­dry day, added to a load of whites in the wash­ing machine, just leave out the bleach entirely. If you aren’t hap­py with the clean­li­ness lev­el of your whites, add a bit of Borax, (sodi­um borate) which soft­ens water and boosts your wash­ing machine pow­er with­out caus­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age. You can even do colours with a bit of Borax to boost their bright­ness safe­ly, too. 

5- Baking Soda As an All-Purpose Wonder Product! 

Okay, maybe it’s not a mir­a­cle clean­er, but it’s not just for bak­ing any­more, either. Bak­ing soda and white vine­gar com­bined to make an excel­lent bath­tub cleanser and cause no dam­age whatsoever.  Bak­ing soda sprin­kled on smelly car­pets, then left for 20 min­utes before vac­u­um­ing, does a ter­rif­ic job get­ting stale, mal­odor­ous rugs fresh again. It’s an inex­pen­sive, ver­sa­tile ingre­di­ent in many home­made clean­ing solu­tions, so pull it out of the pantry and start research­ing its many uses. 

6- Speaking Of Research… 

We aren’t sug­gest­ing you should toss out all your clean­ing prod­ucts and dive into the switch unpre­pared. You’re read­ing this arti­cle, and that’s an excel­lent first step! There are plen­ty of web­sites and online resources to help you make the change. You can make the switch grad­u­al­ly, as your sup­ply of clean­ing prod­ucts dimin­ish­es, or you can go all in and toss the offend­ing items all at once. How you approach this depends, in part, on your per­son­al­i­ty and pref­er­ences when start­ing any new endeav­our. What mat­ters is that you do make the change, prefer­ably soon­er rather than later!

7- Bringing In Plants Is Good For More Than Your Decor

Hav­ing a gar­den indoors is a great way to help clean the air in your home, as plants help rid the air of harm­ful gasses like car­bon monox­ide. Accord­ing to Live Sci­ence, an online mag­a­zine ded­i­cat­ed to all man­ner of major sci­en­tif­ic insights and minor, fun triv­ia, plants do indeed make the air in your house or apart­ment clean­er. By how much is still a sub­ject of con­sid­er­able debate, but why not add some green­ery and ditch the chem­i­cal air fresheners? 

8- Read Labels When You Start Switching Products

Most eco-friend­ly clean­ing solu­tions are what they say they are and con­tain vine­gar, fresh lemon, and oth­er ingre­di­ents that don’t harm the earth. Still, it’s impor­tant that you read labels and are cer­tain that the prod­ucts you’ve cho­sen are indeed safe and non-toxic. A quick way to know is by look­ing for a label marked “DfE,” which stands for “Designed for the Envi­ron­ment” Man­u­fac­tur­ers must meet cer­tain strict cri­te­ria to obtain this label issued by the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) in the Unit­ed States. For more details, check out the agency’s web­site and learn more.

9- Check Your Local Health Food & Bulk Supply Store For Products

If you can’t find clean­ing sup­plies that meet your new stan­dards at a local gro­cery store, head to your organ­ic food shop or bulk food store. These out­lets often sell envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly prod­ucts of all types, includ­ing clean­ing sup­plies. And if you’ve decid­ed to make your solu­tions at home, they will have every­thing you need, like bak­ing soda and white vinegar. They often car­ry essen­tial oils, too, so if you want a drop of laven­der in your house­hold clean­er because it smells so good, you can buy every­thing in one place! And buy­ing in bulk reduces pack­ag­ing that has to be tossed out or recy­cled, which adds anoth­er angle to your new, envi­ron­men­tal war­rior self! Once you make one change, more just seem to nat­u­ral­ly follow.

Wrapping Up!

Every­one knows that sav­ing the plan­et is hard work, and some­times folks feel as though the strug­gle is too large for any one indi­vid­ual to under­take. But just as it takes a vil­lage to raise a child, as the say­ing goes, it takes a world of peo­ple to save a plan­et, and each of us must do our part. Tak­en togeth­er, all these small changes add up to very pro­found improve­ments for our soci­ety and our planet.  Mak­ing the switch to eco-friend­ly clean­ing prod­ucts is not as intim­i­dat­ing a process as you may think. Whether you do it grad­u­al­ly or you decide, one fine morn­ing, to rid your­self of every tox­ic prod­uct in the house is entire­ly up to you. Like we said ear­li­er, what mat­ters is that you do it, prefer­ably before 2022 begins! You’ll be amazed at how won­der­ful you’ll feel when you make even one small change in this regard. Before you know it, you’ll be think­ing about buy­ing an elec­tric vehi­cle or aim­ing for a zero-waste house­hold by next summer! It’s easy to get excit­ed about the poten­tial we all have for change, and good changes for Moth­er Earth mean our grand­chil­dren will inher­it a plan­et we are proud to have kept for them. Opt­ing to switch to envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly clean­ing prod­ucts is just the first in a long list of harm reduc­tion prac­tices we all need to make. Our brand rec­om­men­da­tion for this top­ic is Sev­enth Gen­er­a­tion. I’ve always been impressed by Sev­enth Generation’s social com­mit­ments and trans­paren­cy with their ingre­di­ents, and my rec­om­men­da­tions in this arti­cle are based on per­son­al expe­ri­ence for the prod­ucts below, includ­ing their Dish Soap Liq­uid, Hand Soap, Paper Tow­els and Laun­dry deter­gent. Please check them out down here ⇓ SG Dish Soap Liq­uid.….…SG Paper Tow­els.….….……SG Laun­dry Deter.….….…..SG Hand Soap                                                   We are all in this togeth­er, and togeth­er we can make our plan­et healthier!