Eco-friendly Ideas to Clean Your House -- Guest post

After a long day at work or at school, it's nice to come home to a clean and fresh house.

Maintaining the cleanliness of our home sweet home can sometimes be a daunting task though. So to make our lives easier, we use products and tools to aid us in cleaning.

But are we sure that these products are friendly to our environment?

Mother Earth has been compromised because of the products that we’re using that are toxic and harmful for the environment. Let us show our concern to the planet that we’re living in by using these eco-friendly tips in cleaning our tiny abode.

Stock photo

1. Replace Hazard Product

Statistically, more than synthetic chemicals are being used today and most of them are not properly tested for safety. These untested and unsafe chemicals can be found in in almost everything like pet or cleaning products.

To preserve our future and our loved ones’, we should make a conscious effort to ditch products that contain harmful chemicals. Since this is not an easy task, you should set a date and clear out your schedule just to check each product that you’re using at home. Gather every product that are untested and unsafe and dispose them properly. Switch to alternative products that contain biodegradable and nontoxic ingredients. 

2. Reusable Dryer Sheets

If you’re still using a commercial dryer sheet, it’s time to assess your preference. Those little disposable sheets contain lots of harmful chemicals such as chloroform, benzyl acetate, limonene, ethanol, benzyl alcohol among others that are linked to many diseases.

The good news is, you can make your own dryer sheets at the comfort of your home. What’s even better is that most of the ingredients are already in your cupboard.

You would need:

·       1 cup white vinegar

·       8 oz. amber spray bottle

·       Essential oils

·       strips of clothes

How to do it:

·       Pour the vinegar into the spray bottle.

·       Add your preferred essential oils. The volume depends on how much scents you want on your clothes

·       Spray it into each sheet. One sheet is enough for a standard load of laundry.

3. Ditch Air Fresheners & Eliminate Odor with Lemon

We use air fresheners to make our home smells good. Some air fresheners though are not safely tested and contain chemicals that are harmful to the health of your family.

If you want your house to be odor-free and smell good, you can opt for natural alternatives instead.  One of the most common natural ingredients used to make your home smell irresistibly is lemon. You can use it almost everywhere – from garbage disposal to bathroom to the kitchen sink.

The acidity in the lemon will surely eliminate the entire unpleasant odour. You can put a slice of lemon in your kitchen sink or you may combine the lemon drops with water or other essential oils. 

4. Clean Floor with Vinegar

The use of vinegar does not just limit as a flavor-enhancer to your favorite dishes. It is also popularly use in cleaning as it’s a natural product that safely disinfects, deodorizes and cleans most surfaces.

It’s an effective cleaning product that you can safely use on your floor as its mild acidity effectively removes stubborn dirt and stains. Against steam clean comparison, vinegar is just as effective, yet it’s cheaper and safer to the environment.

To make your own solutions, simply mix ¼ to ½ cup of vinegar with 1 gallon of water. You can also add essential oils if you want a more scented finish.

5. Clean Indoor Air with Plants

Plants don't only make our surrounding beautiful, they are also used to purify our indoor air and eliminates bad odor.

If you want your home to smell nice and fresh, have these plants:

·       Garden mum

·       Spider plant

·       Dracaena

·       Weeping Fig

·       Peace lily

·       Boston fern

·       Bamboo palm

·       Aloe Vera

Taking care of our environment should start from our home. These tips above will not only give us an immaculately clean house, it will also help our mother earth becomes a better place to live in.