How to Green Your Cleaning

What’s the Big Deal?
YAHOO! Green
Cleaning products are everywhere in our homes and offices: on dishes, countertops, furniture, clothes, floors, windows, and floating through the air. In our war on dirt and germs we may often actually be making things worse. Most of the conventional cleaning products we all grew up with are petroleum-based and have dubious health and environmental implications. Instead of opting for cleaning products that annihilate everything in their path, there are plenty of natural products and methods that keep a house clean and fresh-smelling without the toxic side effects.

Top 10 Tips
Here are 10 highly effective ways to go greener. Hit it.
1. Cleaner, greener, meaner
As the health and environmental impacts of conventional cleaning products become more thoroughly understood, more and more brands of healthy, green, and effective cleaning products have started hitting the market and competing for that coveted place of honor under your sink. Many of these products are non-toxic, biodegradable, and made from renewable resources (not petroleum). But if designer labels aren’t for you, home-mixed cleaners can get the job done and then some. Vinegar and baking soda can be used to clean almost anything. Mix in a little warm water with either of these and you’ve got yourself an all-purpose cleaner.

2. Healthy airflow
It is not uncommon for the air inside a home or office to be more toxic than the air outside. This is because of the presence of toxic materials and substances and the fact that homes and buildings are better insulated than ever before (which is a good thing from an energy standpoint). Keeping windows open as often as possible allows fresh air in and keeps toxins flowing out. This is especially important when cleaning your home.

3. Are we breeding super-germs?
The antibacterial and antimicrobial ‘cleaners’ that many people think are necessary, especially during cold season, don’t clean hands better than soap and water, and also add to the risk of breeding “super germs,” bacteria that survive the chemical onslaught and have resistant offspring. The FDA has found that antibacterial soaps and hand cleansers do not work better than regular soap and water, and should be avoided.

4. Help your home smell soda-licious
Baking soda not only removes those strange smells coming from your fridge, it’s also a great odor-eliminator for your carpet. Just sprinkle on a little baking soda to soak up some of those odors and then vacuum it up.

5. Clean peace
Skip the store-bought air fresheners and instead try boiling cinnamon, cloves, or any other herbs you have a fondness for. Fresh chocolate chip cookies also have been known to create a friendly aroma. Also, plants may not make your house smell different but are good for filtering interior air--pretty much any broad green leaf plant will do. Peace Lilies are a favorite choice.

6. The toxic toss
When replacing your cleaning products, don’t just throw the old ones in the trash. If they’re too toxic for your home, they won’t be good for the drain or the landfill either. Many communities hold toxics & electronics recycling days and will take all of these off your hands. Throwing chemicals in the trash or down the drain means they might end up back in your water supply and come back to haunt you (see How to Green Your Water for more).

7. Dry cleaners
Conventional dry cleaners are the largest users of the industrial solvent called Perchloroethylene, or perc, which is toxic to humans and also creates smog. The two most common green dry-cleaning methods are carbon dioxide cleaning and Green Earth. Seek out cleaners that use green methods. If you do take clothes to conventional cleaners, be sure to air them outside before wearing them or putting them in the closet.

8. Green house cleaning service
For people don’t have the time to clean their own homes, fortunately there are an increasing number of green cleaning services out there to help get things spic and span. If you can’t find one in your area (or their rates are outlandish), call around until you find a service willing to use the products and methods you specify.

9. Leave the toxins at the door
Imagine what’s on your shoes at the end of the day. Bringing that oil, antifreeze, animal waste, particulate pollution, pollen, and who knows what else into the house is not good news, especially for kids and other critters that spend time on floor level. Keep the sidewalk out of your home with a good doormat or a shoeless house policy. Many green buildings now include entryway track-off systems as a means of maintaining a healthy interior environment. Less dirt also means less sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming, which means less work, water, energy, and fewer chemicals.

10. Clean design
Designing houses and other building with cleanability in mind can create spaces that are cleaner, healthier, and require fewer substances to maintain. In larger buildings, good cleanability can also be a big money-saver as cleaning costs can often add up to as much as half of a building’s total energy costs.

So You Wanna Do More
Not content with just getting by? Go hardcore.
1. DIY
Create your own cleaning solutions made from products you have around the house. These save money and also keep toxic chemicals out of your house. See below for suggestions on homebrewed cleaners.

2. Taking it to the cleaners
Talk to your boss/co-workers/custodial team about switching cleaning products to green cleaning products. The people most at risk from the toxic effects of cleaning chemicals are custodial workers.

3. Underneath it all
Consider replacing your carpets with wood, linoleum or other non-carpet flooring. This will reduce the toxic cleaners needed for rugs as vinegar and water works great for cleaning non-carpet floors. This can also save energy, because you won’t need to run that vacuum.

4. Clean carpets
When getting carpets steam cleaned, look for companies that use only water or natural solvents.

5. Non-disposable
Paper towels and other disposable, single-use cleaning things can be replaced with reusable clothes and mircrofiber wipes. Clean them in the dishwasher and whiten them with hydrogen peroxide when they need it. Also, when it comes to buying sponges, natural ones are biodegradable and can break down or be composted when their useful life is through. But make certain that the natural sponges you buy come from a "sponge farm" and not from a natural ecosystem.

By the Numbers
Want the real deal? Here's where the rubber meets the road.
1. 17,000: the number of petrochemicals available for home use, only 30% of which have been tested for exposure to human health and the environment.

2. 63: the number of synthetic chemical products found in the average American home, translating to roughly 10 gallons of harmful chemicals.

3. 100: the number of times higher that indoor air pollution levels can be above outdoor air pollution levels, according to U.S. EPA estimates.

4. 275: the number of active ingredients in antimicrobials that the EPA classifies as pesticides because they are designed to kill microbes.

5. 5 billion: the number of pounds of chemicals that the institutional cleaning industry uses each year.

6. 23: the average gallons in chemicals (87 liters) that a janitor uses each year, 25% of which are hazardous.

Dig Deeper Into TreeHugger
Dig deeper by perusing some of our thousands of posts.
Here is a sampling of relevant topics and products TreeHugger has covered. Also take a dip into the TH archives for more on almost any topic you can think of. If the answer you are looking for is glaringly absent, feel free to drop a TreeHugger writer an email and raise the issue.

· A TreeHugger survey polls the electorate on their use of green cleaning products.
· A look at two specialty cleaning services that employ eco-friendly methods.
· TreeHugger roots into the question what do I do about clogged drains? and offers a more natural alternative to busting out the Drain-O.
· Pots, pans, plastic: all are possible causes of Toxic Shock Syndrome. This Canadian report looks at over 4,000 common chemicals and their links to your health.
· Good advise on taking care of your floor the way grandma used to.
· Conventional dry cleaning is anything but green. Carbon dioxide and Green Earth are two friendly alternatives that get the job done.
· TreeHuggers give their thoughts on Seveth Generation’s book, Naturally Clean, by CEO Jeffrey Hollender.
· TreeHugger interviews Gregor Barnum, Corporate Consciousness director for Seventh Generation.
· In the battle between hand washing and machine washing the dishes, who really wins?
· Some products for keeping the pool naturally clean.
· A how-to guide for the laundry room.
· Kyeann Sayer shares some tips on how to sweat without staining.
· Zeolite is a natural mineral that absorbs odors and moisture.
· Some valuable techniques on how to use tea tree oil around the home.
· Most of us share our home with dangerous substances-here is a review of some of the pertinent knowledge and how to steer clear.

Books we’ve covered:

· Better Basics for the Home: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living
· Clean Sweep: The Ultimate Guide to Decluttering, Detoxing and Destressing Your Home
· Green Clean: The Environmentally Sound Guide to Cleaning Your Home
· Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy Non-toxic Cleaning

Dig Deeper Into Other Sources
TreeHugger is one of many sources; here are some other great ones.

· The Union of Concerned Scientists has a thorough list of definitions for common household cleaning products, including an explanation of what makes them harmful and alternative options.

· This National Institute of Health web page allows for searches on a variety of products, including cleaning products and their health and toxicity ratings. The database includes a multitude of companies but is limited to information provided by company reports.

· Under the LEED certification system, a building can receive as many as fourteen points for green cleaning products and cleanability.

· Grist offers tips on how to get your cleaning crew at work to switch to safer products.

· GreenBiz.com provides in-depth reports and articles on the business breakdown of a green approach to cleaning.

· The Children’s Health Environmental Coalition offers great advise on how to make your own cleaners that can handle just about any corner of the home and lays out the five products needed to clean just about anything.

· What’s the difference between a sanitizer, disinfectant, and a sterilizer? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Antimicrobial Pesticide Product page will clear that up for you. Its Green Cleaning Products page also lays out the basics of why cleaning chemicals can be so harmful.

· CleanerSolutions Database is a free online tool for evaluating surface-cleaning products.

· The Center for a New American Dream offers advice on how to change the cleaning products used by your custodial staff as well as the statistics to back it up, and they also offer reports from cities that have greened their cleaning practices.

· Environmental Choice is an international organization that certifies green cleaning products and other home and office products.

· The Ashkin Group advises cleaning services on greening their cleaning.

· Green Seal is another standardization organization that is certifies cleaning products among other things.

· Green Earth is one of the most widely available ecologically preferable dry-cleaning systems.

· Seventh Generation’s Making a Difference Newsletter provides regular doses of sound advice.