Sustainable Cleaning: 8 Eco-Friendly Ways to Clean Your Home

With the COVID-19 pandemic going on, there is no denying that keeping your home clean is essential now more than ever.

However, cleaning your home does not necessarily mean that you should rely on commercial products available in the supermarket. Not to mention that your local grocery might be running out of stock due to panic buying.

Luckily, there are sustainable ways to clean your home:

Use Vinegar to Clean Your Floors

It is important to keep your floor clean all of the time. For one, it is one the largest surfaces in your house. That said, it is one of the largest breeding grounds for germs and bacteria in your home.

However, detergents and bleach are not an eco-friendly way to clean your floors. As a sustainable alternative, you can use vinegar instead.

You can mix it with water in a 1:1 ratio. Say, 500 ml of vinegar mixed with 500 ml of water. This solution can work on any surface other than slate or granite floors.

Refresh Your Dishwasher

Aside from cleaning your floors, you can also use vinegar to clean your dishwasher.

So instead of using expensive chemical tabs to thoroughly clean your dishwasher, what you can do is pour two cups on white vinegar in a dishwasher-safe bowl. Set it on the top rack of your empty dishwasher and let it run for one cycle.

Doing so ensures that you get to eliminate germs and bacteria, as well as the unpleasant odor.

Clean the Toilet Bowl with Baking Soda

Just like lemons, baking soda is nature’s cleaning wunderkind. That’s because it functions as a gentle abrasive, deodorant, and more.

Not to mention that you can use it in various areas of your home, including your bathroom.

For example, if you want your toilet bowl to be clean and bright, what you can do is throw a cup of baking soda into the toilet bowl, and then let it sit for at least an hour. After that, add a cup of white vinegar and let it sit for at least 10 minutes.

You may scrub the bowl before you flush it.

Let Fresh Air In

It is a common notion that a house should smell pleasant. And who does not want that?

Plus, a clean house should smell pleasant, right?

This explains why moms and house cleaners prefer to use air fresheners to eliminate unwanted odor. However, many air fresheners contain chemical-based ingredients that are not eco-friendly.

If you want an earth-friendly way of making your house smelling fresh, the best thing you can do is to open all the windows. That way, you can let the fresh air in for a while, eliminating the unpleasant odor.

At Maid Sailors Home Cleaning Services NYC, this is actually the first thing we do before we start cleaning.

Air-Dry Your Clothes

After doing your laundry, you may choose to air dry your clothes instead of using the dryer.

For one, it allows you to conserve electricity. Second, you are utilizing the warm, sunny days to naturally dry your clothes.

In fact, sunrays can naturally kill the germs and bacteria in your clothes while drying. Not to mention that air-dried clothes tend to smell better.

These are just added benefits of air drying your clothes, as doing so helps you to significantly reduce your household’s carbon footprint.

Just make sure to check the weather forecast on your laundry day, so you would know whether or not it is wise to hang your clothes outside to dry.

Remove Rust with Salt and Lime Juice

Rust can be challenging to remove, that’s why some will just give up on it. Sure, commercial rust cleaners can work, but it is highly toxic in nature.

If you want to remove rust without using any toxic cleaning products, you can opt for salt and lime juice.

Mix these two together to create a paste, and then let it sit at room temperature for an hour or two. Using an old toothpaste or the small end of a rug, you can rub the solution on the rusty part of an appliance.

Doing so allows you to efficiently remove rust is a sustainable way.

Use Reusable Rags and Sponges

Just because your bath towels are old and worn out, that does not mean that you should throw it. Instead, you can reuse it into cleaning rags.

You can choose to cut a bath towel into smaller pieces, about the same size of face towels. And then you can use it to wipe your shelves, counters, and other surfaces clean.

Doing so keeps you from spending more money on paper towels.

Turning your old and worn out bath towels into rags will not just help you save money from buying cleaning materials, you are also keeping more used paper towels from being sent to landfills.

Polish Your Surfaces with Old Newspaper

Just like with old bath towels turning into rugs, you can use your old newspaper to polish surfaces in your home, such as mirrors.

Wet a crumpled piece of an old newspaper, and use it to clean mirrors, windows, vases, wine glasses, and many more. Once you are done, you can then wipe it dry with a clean rug.

And in case you are wondering what to do with a wet newspaper afterward, consider adding it to your compost bin. Papers, in general, are considered brown composting material.

Just remember to shred the used newspaper first, and then offset it with green composting material.

You may not consider home cleaning as the highlight of your day. Nonetheless, this can help keep your sanity intact, as well as ensure you and your family are healthy. And with the earth-friendly tips listed above, you now have a sustainable way to clean your house.