Green Cleaning
November 9th, 2007
Here’s a few more things to add to our list of what we’re doing to make less of an impact on the environment:
- reusing plastic water bottles and/or refillable water bottles. Here’s one I want for Christmas - Biter Bottle
- bringing my own coffee cup to It’s A Grind - I save paper, and I get 10 cents off each cup!
- changing my toxic cleaning habits (see below)
To change these cleaning habits, I needed two main ingredients - vinegar and baking soda. I threw out all the harmful chemicals underneath my sinks and in my laundry cabinets, and now I primarily clean with vinegar and baking soda. Although usually not at the same time. (Remember the volcano you made in elementary school?) Other products I use - dish soap, water, washing soda (for the dishwasher & the laundry washer), and lemon scented oils so my house doesn’t smell like a pickle. Besides being cheaper than any other cleaners we used, the most short-term payoff is I don’t have to worry about my kids getting into and accidentally swallowing harmful chemicals!
I also just started using cleaning cloths by Method. (Another thing to add to my list -we hardly use paper towels anymore!) I love Method’s microfiber cloths. They’re not cheap, but they seriously clean quicker than I’m used to - I don’t have to scrub so hard anymore. I wish I was getting royalties from them to promote their products, but oh well. 
Oh, and while I’m on this Method kick, if you purchase $20 or more of Method products, you can get a reusable tote bag for free. Go to their website for more info. I did this just a few weeks ago and received my tote bag this week. It’s so cute AND you can fit lots of stuff in it, plus you can zip it up to a very small size.
Today I just heard about a new line of products called Lily’s Garden Herbals through my new friend Amy. She’s giving away some products from Lily’s, and she wrote a fabulous blog about natural cleaners that I completely agree with. You can also look through her site and find her recipes for cleaning and her post about Earth Day 2007.
Entry Filed under: Getting Greener
3 Comments Add your own
1. crunchy domestic goddess | November 9th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
great blog post.
i haven’t tried those method cloths yet. they sound like a good investment.
thanks for your entry.
2. rachel | November 10th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Several months ago, we all got “Kleen Kanteens” from reusablebags.com. We really like them a lot and they have a sport top which is very handy to use while driving. Josiah even likes his!
It was fun to see you guys randomly last night, sorry we didn’t get to talk more.
3. katrina | November 15th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
i think i’m gonna need to see that tote!
i really am glad you & mom/dad have started doing things like this. i’ve been trying to get mom and dad to recycle stuff for years. and it’s not like i’m tying myself to a tree any time soon [can you say "bugs"? ew!], but there are some simple, cheap, easy things we can do to be better to the earth and keep natural resources. yes, Jesus will be back soon, but we don’t know when, and i’d like our [your] kids to grow up in a pretty, healthy world.
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