Green Cleaning Products » Eco Green Cleaning Products

Green Cleaning Products – Better for You and the Earth

Admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:47:38 +0000

Choosing to use Green Cleaning Products can be a simple way to not only reduce the damage you do on the earth, but also to reduce the damage you do to yourself. How many of us actually abide by all the ‘how to use’ information on our home cleaning products?

My guess, not many. After all, most of us rarely even read such tiny instructions or warnings do we. We tend to assume that if something is sold to us it simply must be safe. But, though generally it is pretty easy not to kill yourself with multi-surface kitchen cleaner, all these products do have potential health risks. It isn’t just the concern about toddlers drinking things they really shouldn’t either (though household cleaners are the main cause of child poisonings today). No, the issue is how we use them and what we use them with.

Most cleaners will tell you that they should be used only in a well ventilated space. But lets be honest here, how many of our guest bathrooms are well ventilated? Ditto the oven and most of us do not own really great breathing apparatus, nor would we wear it when cleaning the oven? But, fail to follow the rules and you will definitely be breathing in far more of the fumes from your products than that deemed safe in their product testing.

If your eyes are running, you start sneezing or your skin is irritated can you really be happy about what is going on inside? Much better to choose greener cleaning products that are more mild to you who uses them. This is one of the reasons the Simple Green Cleaner range has done so extraordinarily well. After all, they are far from the most environmentally friendly ranges available. But, what they do have is a history of being used as workplace cleaners. Firstly this means that however green they are there first job is to be efficient. The second issue is that to be sold as industrial workplace cleaning products requires passing far more stringent safety legislation than anything used in the home. So, though they may have their detractors they are generally some of the safest cleaning products for you to be using, as far as your own health is concerned.

On the whole Green Cleaning Products are better for you, as well as for the earth. Relying less on harmful irritants means they are less likely to lead to health issues for those who use them. But, even if you use the most natural cleaner on the market do think about how you use them. Leave all natural vegetable soap on your skin and it will damage it, drying it with its alkaline nature. Vinegar may be the mildest antibacterial cleaner going but you wouldn’t want to inhale it when mixed with baking soda.

Green Cleaning Products are better for you and the earth, but only if you break the habit of a lifetime and read those instructions every now and again. And, think very carefully before using two different products together. The reaction to products mixing can be very different to when used alone.

Green Cleaning Products.

Admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:50:22 +0000

Doing your bit to help the planet from your own home does not need to be complicated. Simply choosing to buy Green Cleaning Products is a great help to both the environment and the health of your own family.

Old fashioned cleaning products are often the cause of allergies and reactions, making them unpleasant to use. Fine spray products such as window and glass cleaners are particularly problematic as they form such a fine mist it gets just about everywhere. Breathing in something designed to dissolve grease is far from ideal, but who honestly can say they take all the necessary precautions to ensure they do not succumb to such obvious hazards. Let’s be honest not many of us clean the bathroom in a face mask and breathing apparatus, though if we use traditional cleaning products we probably should.

Using Green Cleaning Products helps enormously as they tend to be not just kinder to the environment, but kinder to us too. This is not too say they are completely benign, but, on the whole green cleaners are a whole lot safer to be around than their ‘non green’ equivalent.

All Natural Green Cleaners are generally far less toxic to breath, and less likely to cause reactions if spilt on the skin. Though we should still be careful with storage and use, that spillages are kept to a minimum and all cleaning products are safely out of reach of both children and pets, we can feel much safer in the knowledge that using the greener cleaner keeps the home a much healthier and less hazardous place to be.

Green Cleaning Products should still be treated with respect and used with care of course. The key way to make your Cleaning Eco Friendly is to use less of whatever cleaners you choose, and even the greenest cleaner is far from beneficial to the environment. Using less resources in our day to day lives is key to helping the planet keep us all thriving for as long as possible. Every little bit helps and that includes using a little less ‘product’ and a little more elbow grease!

Simple Green Cleaning Products #3

Admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:49:18 +0000

Eco Friendly Cleaning is not just about biodegradable products, or all natural ingredients. There is a bigger picture, which insists we all use fewer resources in general. One way to help your green cleaning achieve this goal is to choose fewer products, and make at least some of them multipurpose Simple Green Cleaning Products.

One of the greenest things you can do with regards to the household chores is use less petrochemical based detergents, and more natural soap based products. Soaps are the original Simple Green Cleaner. They can be all natural and even organic cleaning products. The Eco Friendly cleaner should have several types of soaps to hand;

Soft soap or liquid soap, for use as a diluted all round general cleaning liquid. For cars, floors and anything else you can think of.
Bar soap for rubbing into stains prior to washing the laundry.
Soap flakes as a pre-soak for dirty laundry and more.

Simple Green Cleaning with Natural Soap

The key to Green Cleaning with soap is not to use too much. That’s how soap scum builds up and leaves you working even harder to remove your Simple Green Cleaning Product.

The cheapest green cleaner has to be ordinary bar soap. From this you can make your own soft soap and soap flakes. Simply grate your bar of vegetable based soap to produce soap flakes. Boil these up in water and you create soft soap which can be diluted further as a general household cleaner. It is even good as a windscreen wash on the car, since detergents (even mild ones such as dish-washing detergent) can corrode the varnish on your car’s paintwork.

Simple Green Cleaning Products don’t come any more basic than soap and water. It is probably why we’ve neglected it as a green cleaner for so long. It just seems so old-fashioned and basic that it can’t be any good - surely. In fact soap is pretty alkaline giving it anti-bacterial qualities (why do you think it’s so great for washing our hands to keep germs and virus’s at bay?).

Don’t forget too, that soap can be used outside too. It isn’t just a green cleaner; it’s also a safe pesticide. Great for dealing with insect pests and fungal problems on your garden plants, insecticidal soap is merely soap used as an insecticide.

Liquid Vegetable Soap, Lemon Mint 16.90 Ounces

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Vanilla Orange Foam Soap- made with organic ingredients- 8.5 oz

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Pure Vegetable Liquid Soap, Herbes de Provence 10 oz Pump by South of France Soaps / 10 oz. ( Multi-Pack)

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L'Amande Traditional Liquid Soap All Natural for Babies and Adults Olive Oil Based Unscented 500 Ml 16 Floz

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Cinnamon Orange French Provence Shea Butter Enriched Liquid Soap with Pump 10.5 Fl Oz

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There is no product to basic and unassuming to be rejected as a Simple Green Cleaning Product. The most basic ideas are often the best, and they simply cannot be beaten when it comes to price and their low environmental impact.

Safe Laundry Detergent

Admin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:20:21 +0000

Making your laundry cleaning Eco friendly is one of the quickest ways to really improve your home’s impact on the planet. With so much laundry detergent literally going down the drain and into our waterways we should all be switching to a safe detergent.

If we weren’t all so darn clean we wouldn’t be having such a negative impact on the planet just by doing the laundry! But, truth is we like our laundry to be REALLY clean, and with the labour saving appliances to hand are able to clean our laundry much more regularly than in days gone by.

Laundry detergent can contain enzymes and bleaches as well as phosphates and other unfriendly particles slow to break down in the environment. The water treatment companies have a tough job filtering all this toxic waste out of that water heading for rivers and the sea.

Plus, we all know how irritating detergents can be. The only reason manufacturers try to sell us ‘Gentle’, ‘Mild’, or ‘Baby Safe’ detergents is because their standard products so commonly cause skin irritations and allergies. Many consumers switch to a safe detergent for the new baby’s laundry but surely our older skin could do with just as much care and attention too?

Safe Laundry Detergent – What to Look For?

Obviously companies like Simple Green and Seventh Generation will provide a safe detergent option, but sometimes even the conventional manufacturers may have something to offer. To check if your product is a safe detergent check out those ingredients for the following:

Avoid phosphates.
Avoid chlorine bleach and whitening agents. Opt instead for non-chlorine bleach made from sodium percarbonate.
Choose readily biodegradable.
Choose plant based detergents wherever possible.
Avoid synthetic fragrances if you or your family are prone to suffer from allergies.
Avoid ‘biological’ detergents containing enzymes (they clean brilliantly but are often extremely irritating on skin).
Choose concentrated safe detergents to reduce packaging and transport costs to the environment.

For more information on the components of laundry detergent click here.

Eco Friendly Laundry Day

Don’t forget the other little changes you can make to laundry day. Alongside your new safe laundry detergent try the following and make your cleaning even more Eco friendly.

Turn the temperature down. Most loads will come out fine on a cool cycle. Save the heat for when your washing really needs it.
Forget fabric softener and drop a cap of white vinegar in final rinse instead. This cuts through any residual detergent, descales the machine and puts some anti-bacterial power into your wash.
Don’t forget how often clothes benefit from a simple airing rather than a full-blown wash. Hanging dry-clean only cashmere sweaters outside for an hour or so gives you much more wear-ability between cleans.
Only use the machine for full loads.
Line dry whenever possible.
Run the machine’s waste outlet to the garden and benefit from your greener safer waste water to keep your garden happy.
You could always opt out of detergent altogether with home-made cleaning recipes or Eco friendly wash balls.

Safe Laundry Detergents at Amazon

Seventh Generation Natural Laundry Detergent with Non-Chlorine Bleach, Free & Clear, Powder, 112-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 4) [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]

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Seventh Generation Liquid Laundry 2x Concentrate, Free & Clear, 32-Ounce Bottles (Pack of 6)

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Citra Suds Natural Laundry Detergent, HE 2x Liquid Concentrate, Lavender Bergamot, 50-Ounce Bottles (Pack of 6)

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Seventh Generation Laundry Detergent, White Flower & Bergamot Citrus, Powder, 112-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 4) [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]

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Purex Ultra Concentrate Natural Elements Laundry Detergent, Linen & Lilies 50oz.

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Choosing a safe detergent is simple, it just requires a little reading. Ignore the ‘natural’ or ‘green’ packaging and check out that ingredients list to make sure your purchase really is safer for you and the environment.

Eco Green Cleaning Brands

Admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:42:12 +0000

Eco friendly cleaning can be achieved by a number of means. Firstly reducing the amount of ‘products’ used and relying on a little more elbow grease. Secondly using some home-made cleaning remedies such as using vinegar, soft soap and baking soda to clean. And, finally buying ready made green cleaners. These can be small scale businesses or even homemade all natural organic cleaning products or they can be mass marketed big name brands.

I suggest from the point of view of practicality and time we use all three ways to green up our household chores. Of course we could make our own soap and use that as the basis for all the products we need but come on, not many of us actually have the time or inclination to suddenly become self-sufficient in all things ‘cleaning’ related.

Back in the real world it is good to use some cheap and cheerful homemade solutions but alongside store-bought remedies to the cleaning conundrum. There are so many Green Cleaning Products to choose from, each with a different level of environmental impact and cleaning ability.

Over the next few posts I will be looking at how the big name brands compare. Although it is lovely to by organic solutions made locally there is not a lot of point in me reviewing those as these small businesses vary considerably in quality and price and those available in your area will be very different to those available in mine. But, those big name brands sell homogenised products worldwide so we should always get exactly the same thing each time we purchase.

There is some suspicion that the big name brands are no better than the conventional brands. The problem is every-one’s definition of ‘green’ or Eco friendly is different and with no legal standards to follow each brand can be as planet friendly as they like.

The responsibility is ours to ensure we buy things which are as safe as we want them to be. Each Eco cleaning brand will fit someones definition of a green cleaner. Just make sure you match your household chores with a company which has the same standards that you have.