Clean Green, Clean Cheap, Then Party Hearty

Written by Karen Verna Carlson, N.D., Ph.D. (Hon.)

  Patience Partnered With Natural Products is Living Holistically       

 

 “Clean adjective 1. Free from dirt, pollutants, or harmful substances.”

 -Oxford English Dictionary-

 

          Giving holiday home parties every year, one of my friends confides, motivates her to enjoy thoroughly cleaning her house. “The definition of ‘clean’ is very straightforward,” writes Renee Loux in easy green LIVING, the ultimate guide to simple, eco-friendly choices for you and your home (Rodale, NY, 2008). “Ironically, however, the vast majority of cleaning products do, in fact, pollute both our homes and the environment and are laden with harmful substances.
          “Up until 60 years ago, all households used…stuff like soap, baking soda, salt, vinegar, washing soda, alcohol, and cornstarch to lift stains, scour surfaces, polish wood, repel pests, and deodorize and disinfect every surface, nook, and cranny,” writes Loux, giving a half-page summary of the chemical revolution “that compromise[s] the most precious things we have…like health, clean air, and fresh water….Choosing to use effective cleaning products that interact more kindly with the soft tissues of humans and with the environment is the right thing to do.”
          Of course it is. And I’ve been a green cleaning enthusiast since the mid 70’s. Not only is green cleaning ecological, it’s also economical. How many different cleaners do you have under the kitchen sink? In the laundry room? Saving space and reducing clutter may even be more prized than saving money, which amounts to hundreds of dollars every year. My hunch is that a “typical” family of four probably spends around $1,000 on cleaning chemicals for home, auto, clothes and personal care. If they’d just use the five to seven natural ingredients, they’d reduce that figure 80%.
 
 

Inexpensive, Easy To Find 

 

 
          Seven easy-to-find, inexpensive ingredients that serve as the basis for most every household cleaning task are described in a handy, simple tri-fold from the Chester County, PA. Solid Waste Authority (www.chestercountyswa.org; 610-273-3771). Loux recommends six, and devotes a chapter each to kitchen, bathroom, laundry and bedroom, detailing simple formulations and easy strategies. Citizens for a Better Environment (www.cbemw.org/fact/cleaners.html) posts a simple 3-column format of “Facts & Tips” that explains the toxicity of chemical cleaners (a scarier to read than Stephen King) and offers alternatives for each. It is user friendly, and prints out on only three pages.
The biggest challenge for me in writing this month’s column, is how to inspire you, dear reader, to make the time in your busy schedule and to devote some energy to changing your cleaning habits. Housecleaning lacks the romance and fanfare of the moon landing that riveted me to the TV 30 years ago but could indeed be a giant leap towards saving our planet. If you’ve never used vinegar or baking soda for cleaning, I implore you to begin. If you are already applying one or both of them, I urge you to expand your cleaning repertoire by adding new uses. (If I can’t inspire you to take action, begging might work.)
 
 

Vinegar Dispels Ants

 

 
          White distilled vinegar has been my first choice for disinfecting floors, cutting boards and counters in kitchen and bathroom ever since I saw its effectiveness to end ant invasions. That was decades ago. I noticed chemical ant traps hidden in the back of cabinets and corners of floors while moving in to new digs. When spring brought forth the first ant scouts, I wiped them away with a sponge dampened with vinegar. I knew those rascals had ways of leaving some kind of trail markers for their tribes to follow, whether or not they returned to the nest. 
          That first season, I freshly swiped a broad area whenever I saw an ant or two or three. It was easy enough to do. I kind of like the pungent smell of vinegar—a snappy blast that disappears quickly. Surfaces sparkle free of dirt and grime. A few times over the summer I came home from a week at the beach to find a dozen or so ants creeping safari-style. Swipe, swipe. The numbers of invaders did not increase greatly because it was easy to give a quick wipe when any appeared. The second summer, a similar pattern emerged. Vinegar therapy kept their numbers from escalating. The third year only a few visitors showed up. From then on no more ants. Continued wiping down those floors, counters and cabinet shelves in my kitchen and bath. Vinegar is so cheap. A little goes a long way. I buy it in gallons.
 
 

Add a Little Patience

 

 
          A country gal, I’ve had other homes with ant histories that vinegar has victoriously rewritten. It was soooo easy to develop the vinegar cleaning habit. Patience was certainly an important component of this success formula. Maybe patience is the most important component. That quality seems in short supply these days. Yet giving this natural remedy time to do its work fosters patience in other areas of my life. Patience partnered with natural products and a little elbow grease (good exercise) is living holistically.       
          Vinegar’s high acidity neutralizes alkaline substances like mineral buildup (scale) from hard water. Annie Berthold-Bond is the author of Clean & Green, The Complete Guide to Nontoxic Housekeeping and Better Basics for the Home. To break down the minerals so they can be wiped away from faucets and drains, she recommends letting a cloth soaked in vinegar rest for a few hours on the area, and they can be wiped away.
          Create clever dispenser bottles using those old fancy liquor bottle tops that are jumbled in the dark recesses of a kitchen drawer. Just tip and pour. 
 
 

Windows, Coffee Makers Sparkle

 

 

 

 

          Windows sparkle if they’re cleaned with vinegar and warm water (about a tablespoon in a pint spray bottle) and wiped until dry with crumpled newspaper (more holistic kudos for reusing resources). Clean your coffee maker by running it through a cycle (yes, without coffee and filter) starting with a cup of vinegar and six cups cold water. Empty it and repeat with just water to remove the vinegar residue. If needed run a second just-water cycle. 
          For teakettles, fill with equal parts vinegar and water, bring to a rolling boil for three minutes, empty and rinse. Fill kettle two-thirds with water and bring to a boil for another three minutes to remove any lingering vinegar residue. Empty and rinse, then repeat the water-boil once more if necessary. Loux points out, this deodorizes the entire kitchen. The strong vinegar smell dissipates quickly, but you may want to go to the living room for a few minutes’meditation. Of course, you can always choose to run the exhaust fan (your holistic score drops, though, expending fossil fuel).
          Baking soda is pure, simple, safe, soft mineral crystals used for more than 150 years. When you empty that teakettle of boiling vinegar water, first pour half a cup baking soda down the drain. “Together, they eat away debris in the pipes,” writes Loux. 
 
 

Wash Fresh Produce 

 

 
          Another great use for this duo is laundry. Sprinkle baking soda liberally over sportswear or work clothes in the hamper to deodorize.  Leave the baking soda on when you load the washer, adding a quarter cup vinegar for brighter colors. You can also dunk, swish and scrub fresh produce in a bath of baking soda (2 Tbl.), vinegar (3 Tbl.) and water (3 C.), then rinse well and drain in a colander. Store and reuse the same solution several times. The baking soda adds a little abrasiveness to remove dirt, residue and wax, but needs a thorough rinse so no baking soda taste lingers on your fruits and veggies. (Don’t use on mushrooms, which absorb the baking soda taste—yuck.)
          Think Outside the Box is a user-friendly booklet bubbling with baking soda uses from www.armhammer.com (note that there’s no “&” in that web address). Is there anybody that does not know about its deodorizing power? Use it to freshen all appliances, including dishwasher, garbage disposal, freezer, microwave. Add to garbage pail, sneakers (shake it out of sneakers before wearing), crib, hamper, diaper pail, toybox, garment bag, plastic food containers. Sprinkle on stuffed toys and dry carpeting 15 minutes before brushing off or vacuuming.
          Shine and polish stainless steel and silverware (sterling and silverplate). Remove marks (like crayons!) from walls and painted furniture, and scuff marks from no-wax and tile floors. Stubborn, burnt-on or dried-on foods lift off after sitting overnight covered with moistened baking soda paste (3:1). Also use baking soda in solution (4 Tbl./Qt. warm water), sprinkled on a damp sponge or directly on a surface. Purchase the giant economy size and fill those leftover empty spice shakers with baking soda, and place them in every room. One of my friends even presented them as Christmas gifts with an artistic booklet she crafted describing the most effective ways to use baking soda.
          Just using vinegar and baking soda can take the place of dozens of single-use chemical cleaners now clogging your cabinet space. Berthold-Bond exclaims, “Natural cleaning truly works if you take the time to understand how natural materials work, and if you use the right thing at the right time. You may be surprised to learn that many modern synthetic cleaning products often mimic the old folk recipes; the old concoctions almost always turn out to be based on good science.” 
If you still can’t seem to get this holistic ball rolling yourself, then instruct your housekeeper or maid service to use these healthy alternatives. Guilt-free cleaning before and after your tree trimming party or New Year’s soiree frees you to party hearty!  
                            
                                                
 
 
 
 
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