7 Genius Green Cleaning Tips And Tricks For Every Room In Your Home
“Going green” isn’t reserved solely for your free-spirited aunt who lives off-the-grid in an Ecocapsule in Portland. It’s now everyone’s responsibility to help keep our environment in as good of condition as it can possibly be.
Being a friend to Mother Nature is easy, and one of the best ways to do so is by employing more eco-friendly cleaning habits. Green cleaning can lessen water and air pollution, reducing health problems like allergies, headaches, nausea, skin irritation, and respiratory issues.
You can also live out your dream of being one of Captain Planet’s Planeteers as you slow down the progression of climate change and ozone depletion. The power is yours!
Turns out, it’s easy being green. And to make your whole home sustainable, the best place to start is with your cleaning products.
Whether you buy a commercial cleaner or make your own, you’ll have the added peace of mind of knowing exactly what ingredients are working for you as well as for the environment. These 20 green cleaning tips and tricks for every room in your home will give you a head start.
Click any of the below links to jump to tips for a specific room:
Kitchen
A one-product-cleans-all solution makes tidying up one of the most-used rooms in your home easy.
When it’s all-natural? That’s just a no-brainer.
1. Use a mild but effective cleanser.
Bon Ami Powder Cleanser uses feldspar and limestone as gentle abrasives and combines them with cleaning agents from renewable sources like corn and coconut oils.
Every stage of meal prep can be safely washed away as Bon Ami is great for countertops, oven doors, stovetops, and even stainless steel appliances.
2. Wash dishes with Biobased ingredients.
Because the least appetizing thing found in a kitchen is dried-on food, dish soap that gets your plates and pots thoroughly clean is a must. However, dyes and synthetic fragrances can take away from the appeal.
Find a plant-based formula like Seventh Generation Dish Soap ASAP. It’s a USDA Certified Biobased product that makes your glasses sparkle without the fake stuff.
Plus, the bottle is made of 100% recycled plastic, which is 100% awesome.
3. Lose the paper products.
Did you know that to make one ton of paper towels, 17 trees and 20,000 gallons of water are polluted?
You may not be the Lorax, but you can still speak for the trees!
Reduce or completely eliminate the use of paper towels in your home by switching to reusable towels and rags. Here are three of our favorite tips for paper towel alternatives from One Good Thing by Jillee:
- Store clean towels under the sink, or display them in a basket on your counter, so they’re just as easy to grab as their paper friends.
- Hang soiled towels to dry, and then throw them in with your regular laundry.
- Compile a collection of fabric scraps, tattered socks, old cloth napkins, etc., for the messes you’d rather not have hanging around even after they’re cleaned up. Allocate these rags for the truly gross jobs that you want to wipe away and promptly throw out.
Bathroom
4. Replace chemicals with all-natural ingredients.
Butoxydiglycol. Say that fives times fast. That’s about as far as we’ll go with anything butoxydiglycol related because it can cause some serious health issues. And yet, it’s present in many bathroom cleaners to help dissolve residue such as grease or soap scum.
Instead, turn to lactic acid and decyl glucoside (from corn starch). They’re naturally derived, do the exact same thing, and are considerably easier to pronounce. Eco-friendly products like Method Bathroom Cleaner utilize these ingredients to eliminate and prevent soap scum and lime deposits.
5. Use a homemade cleaner for the toilet.
Everyone’s favorite part of cleaning the bathroom is the toilet, right? No?
Well, while we can’t say we blame you, it is necessary. And with a homemade all-natural toilet bowl cleaner that won’t harm the environment, you can at least feel a little good about it.
You’ll need:
- 1 cup of white vinegar
- 1 cup of water
- 1 cup of Borax
- 20 drops of lemon essential oil
Bring the water and vinegar to a boil. Add the Borax and dissolve it completely. Let it cool, then add the lemon essential oil. Pour the entire mixture right into your toilet bowl. Scrub the sides of the bowl with a toilet brush.
Let everything sit for a few hours or overnight, scrub the bowl with the toilet brush one more time, then flush.
Laundry Room
Stains happen. Phosphates (kill freshwater aquatic life), chlorine (can cause respiratory and skin irritation), and ammonia (detrimental to those with respiratory and heart problems) don’t have to.
6. Wash clothes with an irritant-free formula.
It’s possible to get clothes clean (like, really clean) with oxygen bleach and enzymatic stain lifters. We know this because products like Biokleen Laundry Powder have proven it.
All of the irritants in traditional laundry detergent are absent, so towels and T-shirts are as cuddly and comfortable as they’re supposed to be.
7. Make your own eco-friendly laundry detergent.
If you’re particularly sensitive — and not just “Yes, I’m still inconsolable from the season finale of This Is Us! What happened with Jack?!” sensitive — mixing up your own laundry detergent is incredibly easy and can save you nearly $70 a year.
Many homemade laundry detergent blends contain Borax, which has been found to cause mild skin irritation due to its high alkalinity. Give this recipe for Borax-free laundry detergent from Wholefully a shot.
Castile soap and baking soda work together to achieve a true clean. And salt fights stains naturally while keeping colors from fading.
Bedroom
Your bedroom is a refuge. But it’s hardly a haven for relaxation when it may be overrun by dust mites, allergens, and the remnants of whatever you and your pet unknowingly brought into your home that day.
While you vacuum regularly-ish and dust your furniture every now and then, the less obvious problems are the microscopic irritants that could disrupt your sleep.
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