TweetSome aspects of natural living require a lot of capital input and are really only feasible if you are renovating or building your own home – using eco-friendly low-toxin paints, using passive solar techniques to heat your home, installing solar water heaters or solar panels and the like. When these sorts of options are presented to us, many of us have to shake our heads and think “Nice idea – too bad the landlord/landlady probably won’t agree to any of that.” However, not all aspects of living more naturally and more sustainably involve large amounts of capital expenditure and require you to spend hours and hours tracing down obscure ingredients. Some things are easy. And remember: even a small change will reduce the amount of toxins in your immediate home environment and will help you live more sustainably.
* Don’t buy any more fancy brand-name home cleaning products (apart from maybe the brands of natural cleaners such as Ecover). Switch to baking soda and vinegar instead for your everyday cleaning needs. These are much easier on your skin and they don’t produce any noxious fumes. And they’re effective!
* Start a compost heap. This is a good way of cutting down on the amount of waste you and your household produce and add to the waste stream, and it also means that you’ll have some good organic fertilizer on hand for your own garden. You don’t have to be too scientific about it: a heap corralled by a bit of netting, corrugated iron or some pea straw bales is all you need. A worm farm is another option.
* Grow your own vegetables, fruit and/or herbs. You don’t have to try to go self-sufficient straight away. Start small – a basil plant in a pot, a tub with tomatoes or a row of runner beans. Growing your own vegetables is a satisfying and highly addictive “hobby” and once you’ve started, you won’t want to stop. Use organic fertilizers and try not to use sprays to control weeds and pests.
* Don’t buy artificial fragrances for your home. This includes air fresheners, shake-and-vacuum powders for carpets, plug-in scent dispensers and all the rest of that ilk. Artificial fragrances are some of the most toxic substances that you can introduce into your home, and they’re some of the easiest to do without. Instead of these artificial scents, go for the real thing in the form of essential oils or fresh flowers. Or just open the window and enjoy fresh air! Bad smells in refrigerators can be eliminated by putting a little bowl of baking soda inside the compartment to absorb unwanted odours. In the toilet, try striking a match and letting the little flame burn off the methane causing the smell.
* If mice are a problem in your home, don’t lay poison baits. Use a spring-loaded mousetrap. The worst these can do to you is to give you a bruise if you put your finger on the trigger when it’s loaded. Mouse poison can poison you, however.
* Buy or make your own reusable shopping bags to reduce the amount of plastic bags in the environment as a whole. Reusable shopping bags not only reduce waste, but they are less of a hazard for small children.
* Cleaning little and often eliminates the need for heavy-duty products to shift stubborn gunk and dirt. Often, a bit of water is all you need to get things clean again.
* Don’t run down to the chemist’s shop for some brand name product next time you get a cold or some minor illness. Many home remedies are safer, cheaper and just as effective at treating minor ills. Try baking soda for beestings, or chicken soup and garlic for a cold.
* You have given up smoking, haven’t you? It’s amazing how many people want to reduce the amount of pollution and toxins they are exposed to don’t take this step. At the very least, keep your smoking for outdoors.
* For short journeys, don’t take the car, even if it’s a hybrid car. Walk or bike instead. You’ll not only cut down on the amount of pollution you produce; you’ll increase your activity levels and get some fresh air while you’re at it.
Look out for organic vegetables and free range eggs. Locally sourced produce is often best – try a farmers’ market. They’re lots of fun to go to.
TweetMBA courses teach a lot of things that are very important to running a successful business. But perhaps because it is so obvious, they tend to by pass some of the very basic issues. Sadly, the basics are often overlooked and neglected and the results are unfortunate, to say the least.
Every company would like to have a nice looking office – both for the positive atmosphere it creates among the staff as well as the favourable impression it creates with potential clients. That’s why companies spend as much as they can afford to (and sometimes more) on the decor of their offices. Where many of them slip up is in the cleaning and maintenance of these offices. Yes, basic office cleaning, something business schools never bother to mention, can mean a lot in terms of business gained and lost.
An office that is tastefully decorated but is not kept clean shows that the company is not one that pays attention to detail. Or perhaps that it does not care about the long term results of its actions as evidenced by the money spent on decor and the lack of subsequent upkeep. Is that how you would like your office, and by association your company, to be perceived?
Office cleaning is a time consuming job and surprising though it may be to many, does require a great deal of specialized know how. If you can afford it the best option is to use the services of a professional cleaning company. Doing your own office cleaning means a constant compromise between using your time for cleaning and for more direct business activities. There’s also always the temptation to put off cleaning, and keep putting it off, because of other more pressing work.
The best way to go about having your office cleaning done professionally is to short list a few companies, take them through your office showing them the high traffic areas and those where dirt seems to accumulate, perhaps for reasons you can’t fathom! Ask them for a detailed quotation that includes the number of people on the job, their specializations, the time the cleaning operation will take, the cleaning materials that will be used and the frequency of cleaning that will be required to keep the office looking good.
While cost is always an important consideration, do not let that be your sole criterion for choosing an office cleaning service. Look for companies with good references, trained staff and give due consideration to companies who itemize the work they will do in the greatest detail. And finally look for a company that will come to clean your office at a time that will cause the least disruption in the business work flow.
Remember that how your office looks is almost as important as how well it functions, especially in major commercial centers like London.
TweetWhile it’s not as common as in the past, a good many people still faithfully attend their local church. And in the more traditional churches, there’s a good bit of cleaning to be done. Those of other faiths can skip this article or make mental corrections as appropriate to your place of worship.
The focal point of a traditional church (e.g. Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist) is the altar, so it’s vital that this be kept clean, in spite of the combination of things that conspire to make a king-sized mess. But don’t panic if you see your name down in the pewsheet this week for cleaning. It can be done – with natural methods.
The altar cloth and other nearby bits of fabric are prone to getting beeswax and even red wine spilt on them. Very “high” Catholics and Anglicans have a simple solution to spilt communion wine: burn the item to avoid sacrilege. Those who have other opinions about what happens during communion/mass have a cleaning job on their hands. Get hold of the site of the spill as soon as possible – either Sunday night after eveningsong or first thing on Monday morning, as red wine leaves a stain like scarlet and red as crimson when you want it to be as white as snow. A good soak in white wine is the best option, as it will dilute the red wine, allowing it to be washed out. If the stain still is as filthy rags, dab lemon juice onto the spot and expose it to strong sunlight to bleach it. Wash again.
Beeswax is also hard to remove from an altar cloth (or any white tablecloth, for that matter). Scrape off as much as possible with your fingernails. Next, take the cloth and put a good wodge of loo paper or paper towels above and below the mark. Get an iron as hot at the cloth will handle it and hold this over the spot. Melt the wax and let it absorb into the cloth. Treat any remaining marks by dabbing the spot with glycerine and washing in warm water.
Bits with embroidery need very careful handling and should be spot-cleaned extremely gently. Only clean visible dirt. If the whole thing looks a bit dull and drab, then lay the item flat and spray it with warm water. Rub a little soap over the item, using a very soft bristle brush to clean make a light lather. Keep the item flat. Rinse by spraying more fresh water over the item – as much as possible. Dry flat. Alternatively, this is one time that you can get it dry cleaned.
To polish brasses (candlesticks, vases, crosses, etc), mix up a paste of salt and vinegar. Apply it to the brasses and leave it to sit. Then scrub gently, either with a cloth (candlesticks) or a soft toothbrush (exquisitely carved lecterns in the shape of an eagle, with lots of fiddly bits). Rinse of the residue with a cloth soaked in fresh water.
To clean silverware, make a paste of baking soda and apply this to the silver. Wrap the item in aluminium foil. Dip it into warm water and leave it to sit. Unwrap and rinse off the baking soda. Dry very thoroughly.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt for the church to hire a professional cleaner to give everything a good going over, including carpet cleaning, on an annual basis. The most appropriate day for doing so would be June 1st, which is the day taken by the Catholic church as a memorial for St Theobald of Vico, Patron Saint of Church Cleaners. Other potential days are those dedicated to the patron saints of laundresses, namely St Claire of Assisi (11th August), Saint Hunna the Holy Washerwoman (15th April), St Lawrence of Rome (10th August), St Martha (29th July – she is also patron saint of housemaids, butlers, housewives and domestic servants) or St Veronica (12th July).
Tweet“No matter where I feed my guests, they always like my kitchen best.” Unfortunately, it’s not just wanted guest that seem to like hanging around in the kitchen and eating everything they can lay hands on (the wanted guests that fit that description are my son’s friends and my bachelor brothers). Unwanted visitors of the many-legged and furry variety also like to behave like this in the kitchen and they are harder to get rid of.
What sort of vermin can you find in your kitchen? It really depends on the time of year and your local climate, because some pests (e.g. mice) like to come indoors from the cold over winter, while other (flies) make regular summer visitors.
Ants, silverfish and cockroaches seem to happen everywhere. Some people consider spiders to be pests, and if you have indoor plants, such as herbs on the kitchen windowsill, aphids can also be a pain.
Mice and rats are comparatively large and gnaw holes in wooden walls. Like most vermin, they carry diseases, especially as they widdle everywhere and leave those tell-tale little black “grains of rice” in cupboards. Deter mice by cleaning up crumbs and blocking easy-access holes in floorboards, and by keeping cats. Even if your cat is a hopeless mouser, the smell of cat is often enough to put many (but not all) mice off. To eliminate mice, set traps. Traps that kill are better than live capture traps – what are you going to do with the live mice you catch, anyway? Check traps regularly. The best bait to use is bread, cereal or peanut butter – mice prefer these to cheese, in spite of the cartoon myth. Rats create more damage, eat more and are intelligent. Some cats won’t touch rats and regular mousetraps are too small to kill a rat. Proper rat traps work, and so does poison (but don’t use poison if you have small children or pets – or even if the neighbours have cats). If you see a rat, you can try to attack it with a blunt instrument (poker or cricket bat) or set the dog on it. Don’t corner a rat, as in this situation, they are proverbially feisty fighters. If all else fails, call in a rodent exterminator.
Cockroaches are sneakier – they don’t leave telltale signs, so the only way to know if these unwanted guests are in your house is if you see it. They eat everything in the cupboards (except, according to one researcher, margarine) and they spread diseases out of your drains and into your food. Regular house cleaning helps, as they won’t go where there aren’t any crumbs to scavenge. Closing up any cracks and crannies that they might sneak in through will also help. To kill cockroaches without any risk to you, mix equal proportions of sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) and icing sugar, put it on a nice easy-access piece of plastic and pop it where you saw the cockroach. Apparently, this mixture is attractive and fatal to cockroaches.
Ants don’t spread disease so much but they are a nuisance that get into everything. They also encourage aphids, which is a pain for anyone who grows plants. However, ants are unlikely to have their nest right in your kitchen and they are easy to track if you’ve got them. All you need to do is wipe out their trail to stop them coming back – chilli powder, borax or pepper are reputed to confuse the scent trail that leads all those ants from their anthill to your sugar bowl. Detergent also works. Ants hate mint, so if you have recurring ant problems, plant mint near where they come into your kitchen.
Flies are nothing but a pain and they breed like… flies. We all have our favourite ways of killing flies – mine is one of those battery powered things that looks like a tennis racket and electrocutes flies. To deter them in the first place, keep garbage away from your kitchen (or at least covered up properly) and don’t leave food scraps lying about. Certain herbs, especially basil, mint, bay and lavender, deter flies slightly (but not totally). A trick from my grandmother-in-law for banishing flies in the kitchen was to boil a small saucepan of vinegar with the lid off so the vinegar fumes filled the kitchen. It works, but it smells.
Silverfish aren’t overly germy, but they are not nice to find in your flour, bread or breakfast cereal. Strong-scented herbs such as marjoram, rosemary, mint and lavender can help to deter them. Keeping cereal foods in airtight containers also helps.
Weevils get into grains, but they hate bay leaves. Pop bay leaves into stored grains and pulses.
Spiders don’t get into your food and don’t spread disease. If you can tolerate a few webs in the odd obscure corner, the spiders will help you control fruit flies, flies and moths.
TweetOne of the least natural and most toxic things that you can do in your home is to dry clean clothes. The fluids/substances they use to get dirt out of delicate fabrics is downright dangerous. So how do you go about cleaning delicate items made of silk or wool, or chunkier items such as children’s toys? (Incidentally, children’s toys are the last thing that should be dry cleaned – the toys are going to be cuddled and held close to the face all night long, and if they’ve been dry-cleaned, they are continually giving off toxic fumes for a child to breathe in.).
The answer to this dilemma (do you wash the delicates in the machine and wreck them, or do you dry clean them and subject yourself to toxic fumes?) is to handwash the clothes.
Handwashing is harder to do than just tossing things in the machine, admittedly, but it is less of a nightmare than it was in days gone by where you had to pump the water by hand, heat it in a copper over a fire and use either lye (eek!) or strong soap (even urine – fact!). Modern plumbing and soap, plus modern fabrics, which are more stain resistant, make the job easier. And you don’t have to do the whole washing load by hand, unless your machine is broken down and you don’t have a laundrette (or a friendly neighbour who will let you use their machine) nearby.
Handwashing carefully will not hurt silk, wool or leather. People have worn these natural fibres for centuries, and they wouldn’t have done this if the choice was either to let the fabric get grubby or have it fall to pieces.
To handwash clothes, you will need water – plenty of it – and some soap. You may also like to have a pair of rubber gloves, some hand cream and a radio chattering pleasantly in the background. The method of washing clothes is the same whether all you need to do is wash a pair of lacy, silky knickers or whether you need to wash the whole family load of sheets, towels, T-shirts and socks.
The first part of washing by hand is soaking. Water is the closest thing to a universal solvent and will float much of the dirt out of the clothing, given time to work. Often, leaving the item(s) to be washed overnight in a bucket of cold water can do wonders. However, if the item in question is not colourfast (sari fabric is often guilty of this), then you should not soak it. If the item is all one colour, you can give it a short soak in cold water for about 10 minutes, but if the item has more than one colour, then just spot-clean it, blotting, rubbing and rinsing just the dirty patch and nothing else. Cold to lukewarm water is best for soaking, as hot water can damage delicate fabrics. Hot water can also set protein stains such as blood or egg yolk. Be generous with the water – the items should be able to float (if you’re doing a large load, fill the bath to about three-quarters full).
Ordinary hand soap is best for washing delicate fabrics. You can just rub the soap onto the damp/wet garment and work it up to a lather, but you can also add the soap in the form of a gel to the soaking water so it can start doing its work. To make soap gel, collect those little slivers and scraps of thin soap that are too puny to wash hands and armpits with and put them in a container. Pour boiling water over the soap scraps and let the soap melt. It will cool and set into a pale grey jelly which is excellent for hand washing clothes, and can also be used as liquid soap or for other home cleaning purposes.
Once the items have soaked a while, it’s time to slip on the rubber gloves and turn on the radio. Move the items around in the water, swirling them back and forth (easy for knickers; a pretty intense workout for a large load). Check each item you’re washing all over for dirt, and rub, squeeze and add more soap to get the dirt out. Don’t wring and twist delicate items or scrub them vigorously or you’ll be worse than a washing machine.
Once each item is clean, squeeze it gently and get rid of the old soapy water. Then run fresh water in. This is the first rinse. Again, swirl the items around gently and squeeze each one a few times. Then repeat the process of squeezing gently and getting rid of the water before running more fresh water in for the second rinse. Adding a touch of vinegar to the final rinse acts as a fabric softener for woollen items, and adding essential oil puts a delicious bit of fragrance in. Swirl and squeeze again.
Finish by putting the items to dry, preferably flat and out of direct heat or sunlight, especially in the case of wool. The items will take ages to dry – woolly jerseys can take days, as can leather/suede. Leather and suede may be a bit stiff after drying, but this goes away quickly if you roll the item up and unroll it a few times.
Soft toys can be washed the same way and can be done by any child over the age of three – and it is a much less heart-wrenching task than putting the beloved bear into the washing machine and waiting for hours. Instead, the child is “giving Teddy a bath”. Toys can usually be spun in the regular machine after handwashing to get excess water out; they take ages to drip dry otherwise. If a child washes their own toys (which can be a fun activity on a sunny day), apply a bit of barrier cream to the hands and arms (and maybe legs, depending on how enthusiastic the child is), and follow up with moisturizer afterwards while Teddy is spinning in the machine.
TweetAccording to the 2008 Guinness Book of Records, the UK has the third worst recycling rate in Europe. This appeared in the entry headed “Largest Fleet of ‘Spy Bins’”– our government popped hidden spy cameras into about half a million household rubbish bins to see what we were chucking out. While this certainly has potential for a new sort of reality TV show that is probably a whole lot better than a lot of the junky American reality shows about, it should make us stop and think about what we’re doing. Because it’s not enough to keep your home spotless and sparkling – we need to keep our country clean, too.
It’s at this time of the year that we are most likely to commit sins of the rubbish variety. Many of us follow the good old tradition of spring cleaning – the only time that a house gets more thoroughly done over is when the time comes for the end of tenancy cleaning binge. And it’s all too tempting, when we’re confronted with a stash of old newspapers, old clothes and other junk to just throw it all in the bin and not give it another thought. However, this habit of just sticking it in the bin is what’s putting us in the books for all the wrong reasons.
Recycling is not that hard. Nor is reusing things for a new purpose around your home. And nor is cutting down on the amount of waste stuff you have in the first place. While there’s many areas that relate to the three Rs (reusing, recycling and reducing), here are some tips related to cleaning and household chores that will help you do your bit to improve our national rubbish rate.
* Save old clothes for use as cleaning rags for dusting and polishing. This cuts down on waste in two ways. Firstly, you’re not using a paper towel for, say, cleaning bathrooms, followed by throwing it into the waste. Secondly, you’re finding a new use for an item that would otherwise be thrown out. Old T-shirts are excellent for cleaning glass, as the material used for your average T-shirt is usually absorbent and lint-free.
* Look out for domestic cleaning products that multi-task. Instead of having one product to clean the fridge, another to clean the oven, another to clean the bath, another to clean the toilet and so on, look for products that will do more than one thing. Natural cleaning products are the winners here, as most of the ingredients used for making these have other uses, and are easier to buy in bulk than commercial cleaning products (usually, it’s only the professional cleaners who are able to get bulk quantities of these). This cuts down on the amount of packaging that is knocking around. And if you do buy some commercial cleaning products, recycle the bottle or container it comes in (or re-use it – those pump action bottles should be saved and rinsed out for storing and dispensing your homemade cleaning products.
* Set up a recycling system. All you need is a couple of storage bins, and you can keep these near your regular rubbish bin. It’s best to have one for paper/cardboard, one for metal and one for plastic, unless you’re lucky enough to have a local council scheme that allows you to put all your recyclables in one bin. Have a totally separate system for organic waste – compost this. Composting means that rubbish bins become less smelly, which means less cleaning and stink-busting for you.
TweetThe place in my house where I am most tempted to not use natural products is in the laundry. Confronted with a tough hard-to shift blotch of something, nothing seems more tempting than grabbing some stain removal stick made of goodness-knows-what that shifts the problem. However, I know that if I do this, I’m likely to give myself dry, itchy skin that lasts for days thanks to the harsh chemicals.
So what’s to be done? Well, the first thing to do is to sort out what sort of stain I’m dealing with (and the sort of fabric it’s on), as this makes a big difference to how to get the stain out without resorting to powerful chemicals that blitz more than just the stain.
Bloodstains: Often, just plain water will remove a fresh bloodstain, as long as the stained item has a good long soak. Cold water is essential to use, as hot water will cook the protein in the blood and set the stain permanently into the fabric, making it impossible to get out. If there’s a lot of blood on the whatever-it-is, then a bit of salt in the water helps to get it out.
Perspiration: Fresh sweat often just washes out with warm soapy water. However, if the sweat has made a stain, you need a bit of help getting it out. Plenty of standard natural home cleaning products will shift these without any trouble. A solution of baking soda in a bucket or bowl of water works – soak the shirt or blouse in the solution. Alternatively, dab on some dilute white vinegar onto the spot. The vinegar has the advantage of tackling the bacteria that love to live on sweat and are the culprits responsible for making sweat smell (fresh sweat doesn’t stink).
Fat, oil and butter: I presume you’ve tried hot water and plenty of soap to get an oil stain. Soap denatures grease and fats, and this is often all you need to get these stains out. If this method hasn’t worked, then either washing soda (sodium carbonate) or baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) will remove the stain. Make a solution of either of these stain removers and soak the item with the stain in it.
Grass: If you’re lucky, the grass stain is on something made from polyester, in which case, the stain won’t “take” to the garment and will just wash out in the regular wash. If you’re unlucky and the stain is on cotton or a cotton blend, you’ll need stronger measures. Vodka or some other strong alcohol (methylated spirits is another alcoholic solvent, but this is a bit more toxic than the alcohols in a drinks cabinet) is your best natural stain remover here. Blot the stained area with the alcohol and rub it in. Then leave it to do its work before washing the garment. Repeat if necessary. Sunlight often fades grass stains, so save the repeat until after the garment has had a chance to dry in full sunlight: often, if a grass stain is still present after going through the washing machine after the vodka treatment, hanging it out to dry in the sun shifts the stain. This method of stain removal also works for removing herbivore manure (cow, sheep, horse) from clothing after mucky work.
Rust marks: If the iron has left rust marks on your favourite white shirt, dab the spots with lemon juice. Leave the lemon juice on the item, then put it out in full sunlight. The combination of lemon juice and sunlight will bleach the spots away. Then rinse out the lemon juice. Use this method with caution on coloured items.
Biro: Biro is soluble in alcohol, so you can dab this onto the stain where your pen has leaked in your pocket to get the mark out. Smaller amounts of biro will just wash out, even on cotton. In my silly university student days, I attempted to decorate my jeans with biro graffiti. All my lovely designs and quirky comments washed out next time I threw my jeans in the machine, never to be seen again.
Egg yolk: This is a protein stain, so first of all, wash out as much of they yellow as you can to get the protein out with cold water. Soak the item if necessary. Sometimes grease or fat from the yolk will be left after this treatment. Add some baking soda or washing soda to the soaking water to deal with this part of the stain.
Beetroot: Beetroot isn’t as bad a stain as you might think. Tackle it as soon as possible and it just washes out normally.
Lipstick: Lipstick is soluble in alcohol, so dab some vodka or other strong spirits onto the spot and leave it to work before washing as normal. Some greasy marks may be left, so if this remains after washing the garment, treat with a solution of baking soda.
Mystery stains on whites that I hope aren’t mildew: Lemon juice and vinegar both kill mildew, so dabbing lemon juice onto the mystery marks and putting the item into the sun will shift them.
TweetHear ye, hear ye! Good citizens, we would like to warn you that some notable rogues may be lurking in your home, waiting to poison you. These dastardly villains work subtly, releasing their deadly chemicals gradually rather than all at once (unless some child unwittingly drinks/eats them), but the end result is the same: constant exposure to things your body was never supposed to deal with. Sickness – which may manifest as exhaustion, headaches and irritability that is “just part of life” – is the result. And, what’s even more pernicious, we pay to let these villains into our homes.
So who are they? Which household products are the deadliest of blackguards? Which cleaning and other products are on Britain’s Least Wanted list, deserving banishment and exile from our homes?
Ammonia: This vile, sneaky villain often masquerades as floor cleaner or glass cleaner, as it is very effective at getting rid of grease and grime, and evaporates easily, leaving very little residue. However, the gas that evaporates is very irritating, causing headaches and irritation to the airways, including the lungs. If this villain forms a conspiracy with chlorine bleach (which it can do if you mix house cleaning products), it forms deadly chlorine gas, as used to horrific effect in the trenches of World War I. The good news is that vinegar, baking soda, washing soda and/or vodka can all do just as good a job as ammonia either for removing grease or for window cleaning.
Chlorine bleach: A very, very common household cleaner and laundry product used for whitening whites and as a disinfectant. It’s also added gleefully to water supplies in many places to get rid of water-borne bacteria, which, admittedly, chlorine is very good at doing. On top of this, chlorine based products are used to clean drains. However, as it is a strong alkaline, it is very corrosive – the scratchy skin, red eyes and strawlike hair you get after swimming in an indoor pool that uses chlorine to control bacteria should tell you that. The gas is also pretty nasty, even on its own. The gas is even worse if it mixes with ammonia – see the above. Vinegar makes a good disinfectant for removing mould and the like inside refrigerators, and boiling water is superb for sterilizing fabrics that need it (provided that they don’t contain elastic or anything that will melt). For getting your clothes white, your best bet is an oxygen bleach (read labels carefully). Natural products don’t do quite such a good job at getting whites white all over, but lemon juice and strong sunshine can whiten small areas (the cost of soaking a garment in pure lemon juice is prohibitive), plus general stain removal. For cleaning drains, try using plungers, boiling water, or a mixture of hot vinegar and baking soda, or manually removing the bend in the blocked pipe and removing whatever goo you find.
Formaldehyde: This carcinogenic criminal disguises itself in many forms. What’s worse is that you won’t find it stated on the contents label. Oh no. Instead, you’ll find the product that contains the formaldehyde listed on the label. Some of these Trojan horses include sodium laureth sulphate, which is in most detergents and shampoos. Formaldehyde also sneaks into your home inside air fresheners and home fragrances. And don’t forget the finer fragrances: where do you think the “aldehydic notes” in Chanel No 5 come from? Not that any of us can afford to expose ourselves to large amounts of Chanel No. 5… Soap can be melted to gel and used as shampoo quite effectively, and this gel can also be used to wash nearly everything else. For fragrance in your home, use essential oils, fresh air, fresh flowers, incense, potpourri and home baking.
Ethylene glycol butyl ether (wouldn’t that make a good name for a pantomime witch?): Found in carpet cleaners, this one doesn’t so much irritate sensitive linings, but it can affect your hormones, to the point of producing reproductive problems. Avoid and stick to regular vacuuming, plus hot soapy water if you need to clean something. This wicked magician also crops up in household fragrances – see under “formaldehyde” for more benign alternatives.
Air fresheners in particular have a high concentration of villains other than the ones mentioned in this Least Wanted list – almost too many to list. Avoid like the plague… in fact, why not take a tip from the past and fill your home with plenty of sweet-smelling flowers instead (“a pocket full of posies”)? It might not have been much good in keeping bubonic plague at bay, but it will remove the need or desire for the toxic villains in air fresheners.
TweetMany people have heard about or tried the benefits of aromatherapy as part of a beauty or health treatment. Some oils lift your mood; others help you detoxify or improve your health. Aromatherapy oils can also be used around the home for a range of purposes.
Make sure that you have proper aromatherapy oils or essential oils. Do not be confused by cheap fragrant oils, as these usually contain synthetics that smell not quite right and don’t have any of the benefits. Essential oils should be bought in brown or blue glass vials with drip dispensers under the lid. Store all essential oils for aromatherapy out of reach of children and out of direct sunlight.
The most common way of dispersing an aromatherapy oil in your home is by using a burner consisting of a little dish resting above a tealight candle. The oils or oils of your choice go in the dish with some water and the heat from the candle generates a little steam that wafts around the home, carrying the oil with it. This method is good for general mood-lifting or relaxing aromatherapy oils. The drawbacks of this method is that the air does get moist, which can have a negative effect on your health, especially if your home is already damp and cold – damp can exacerbate respiratory problems. However, this could be counteracted by using one of the oils that treat respiratory problems such as peppermint (menthol), camphor, cinnamon, rosemary or eucalyptus.
A drier way of getting the essential oil into the air so you can breathe it in and scent the ambience is to touch a little of the dried oil onto an unlit lightbulb. When the light is switched on, the heat will release the essential oil. Never dab it onto a lit bulb – you will make the glass shatter. Another method that works well if you have radiators is to soak a little tissue paper and tuck this behind the radiator out of sight. On a gloomy winter’s day, try lemon for a quick refreshing pick-me-up.
Many essential oils have antibacterial/antiseptic properties. It’s no coincidence that most commercial synthetic disinfectants have artificial pine or lavender scent added to them – these were traditional essential oils used to disinfect. To make your own antibacterial general house cleaner, add about 10 or so drops of oil – oregano, thyme, pine, lavender, cinnamon or tea tree oil, or a combination of these – into white vinegar. Leave it to infuse for about a week, then dilute 50-50 with plain water in a spray dispenser.
You can also use the antibacterial oils to make a cleaning paste by mixing your chosen oils with bicarbonate of soda. Don’t use much – just enough to make a very thick cake. Once again, set the mixture aside for a week or so in an airtight or screw-top jar before using, and mix with a little water (outside of your container) before rubbing onto whatever you want to clean with a soft cloth. This is suitable for nearly all surfaces.
It’s a little extravagant, but essential oil can be added to the final rinse of a load of washing to put a fresh scent that’s much less overpowering and more natural than the fragrances in commercial powders. This writer’s husband once worked in a commercial conifer forest – the pine gum took ages to wash out, but his work clothes put a lovely pine scent all through the wash.
Essential oil of pennyroyal is hated by fleas and it makes a more gentle treatment for cats and dogs. Put a little oil of pennyroyal on a bristle brush or on a mitten before stroking or grooming your pet.
This will rub the oil all over them. But don’t try this if you’re pregnant – oil of pennyroyal can cause miscarriage.
TweetYou know the good old motto of conservation: think globally and act locally. But don’t forget that when you clean your house, this is part of acting locally and you need to remember that it isn’t just your home that needs to be kept clean and in good order. You need to keep your bigger home – the home you share with the other four billion people plus many more plants and animals – clean and running nicely.
Here’s a selection of simple things we can all do when we’re cleaning and doing chores that will help the environment in one way or another.
* When you clean the car, don’t use a hose. Use a bucket of warm soapy water to do the cleaning and you won’t waste our valuable fresh water. You can use the hose to rinse off, if you must, but only use what you have to.
* Another water-saving tip for when you’re cleaning the garden is to use a broom to clean the driveway rather than using a hose. Sweep up all the leaf litter, etc and put it into the compost heap or use it as a mulch.
* When you use the dishwasher or the washing machine, save electricity (and thus reduce greenhouse gases as well as saving a penny or two) by only running a load when the machine is full. If you need something that urgently, wash it by hand.
* When you do the laundry, run the machine on a cold cycle. This saves power and, as an added bonus, means that many common stains wash out without setting (e.g. blood, egg yolk, gravy).
* Start a compost heap if you don’t have one already. Food rubbish is what makes rubbish bins stink horribly and attracts flies. This means you’ll spend less time, energy and money trying to remove the smell and kill flies.
* Switch to using natural domestic cleaning products for doing your household chores. Most natural cleaning products work just as well as commercial cleaners (if not better) and cost a fraction of the price. They also use fewer raw ingredients, release fewer toxins into the environment and usually use less packaging.
* Save work and save electricity by washing laundry less. Honestly, you don’t really need to wear a fresh shirt every day, do you? Unless you do a really filthy job (in which case, you probably wear overalls), then you probably only need to change your shirts every two days or even three!
* When you do the laundry, dry it outside as much as possible – it’s free! What’s more, sunshine is a great disinfectant that also kills mould and helps bleach whites. Sunlight’s bleaching power is increased with a bit of lemon juice.
* Scent your house with what nature provides (fresh flowers, essential oils and home cooking) rather than artificial fragrances. Again, this releases fewer toxins into the environment (your immediate environment and the wider one), reduces packaging, etc.
* Set up a system for collecting and putting out recyclables. It’s easier than you think, and if you know that what you’re getting rid of via the recycling stream is doing good, you’ll be less likely to hoard clutter that you don’t have to, which makes your home easier to clean.
