How to maintain a chemical-free home
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Find alternative ways to clean your home
There are a number of alternative methods and strategies that can be used to reduce the amount of chemicals used in your home, reduces your costs, helps to reduce the chemical load on your body, allowing you to become healthier and reduces the amount of damage to the environment from manufacturing these chemicals.
The following are the best ways to clean your home without the use of any chemicals and not only will your home be clean, it will smell fresh and you will know you are not polluting the environment, you are not making yourself sick and you are saving money in the process. So go ahead and use these methods today to help you on your chemical-free path for your home:
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This is a basic list of ingredients you will need in order to stop using those (often) dangerous chemicals found in most cleaning products. These ingredients are basically non-toxic and some of them are even used in food we eat:
- Bicarbonate of soda - this is found in the cooking section of your local supermarket. Buy lots, as it is used a great deal in natural cleaning
- Lemons - the whole lemon and their juice are used for their excellent acidic nature, use only organic lemons
- Linseed oil - the oil of flax (linseed) has excellent polishing properties for wooden furniture and hardwood flooring
- Olive oil - the oil of olives interestingly has some excellent polishing properties for wooden furniture
- Organic all purpose spray - this should be "100% certified organic" ortherwise it will contain artificial additives and toxic chemicals. This can be used instead of conventional cleaning sprays on any harder to clean surfaces (or for the sake of providing time-poor people with extra convenience, but using a wholesome, natural product)
- Organic dishwashing liquid - this should be "100% certified organic" ortherwise it will contain artificial additives
- Organic laundry liquid - this should be "100% certified organic" ortherwise it will contain artificial additives
- Salt - either rock salt or fine grain rock salt, just make sure it does not have any anti-caking agent
- Soda water - this is excellent to use to remove wine stains
- Vinegar (white) - use only white vinegar as any other type may cause discolouration
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Other items (non-edible) to use:
- Eucalyptus oil - this pure essential oil is produced from the eucalyptus tress, which is native to Australia and has many uses
- Fly swat - this is the best way to avoid using chemical fly and other insect deterrants
- Lavender oil - this pure essential oil is the oil of lavender flowers and has a great number of uses
- Pure soap (unscented) - use only unscented soap with no artificial ingredients (preferably organic)
- Tea tree oil - this pure essential oil is produced by the tea tree which is native to Australia and has many uses
Note: All the essential oils above should not, under any circumstances be ingested orally, as they can cause poisoning. Sometimes you can get the essential oils in a mixture of oil, which is much milder. Always follow the instructions on the labels.
references
- Samways L. The Non-Toxic House: Making your home and work environment pollutant-free. Green Press, Australia 1991
- Stewart, R. The Clean House Effect: Hundreds of Practical, Inexpensive Ways to Reduce the Use of Chemicals in Your Home.