2 Spring Cleaning

Throw those windows open, let the winter air that has been cooped up out and rejoice that spring is here! And with its arrival comes the dreaded spring cleaning. This was in our mail this week.

This is NOT how you want to tackle your spring cleaning.

Paper Towels

The Impact

The production of 1 ton of paper towel uses 8299 gallons of water and countless trees, the bleaching processes uses a ridiculous amount of chemicals, they can not be recycled and so end up in landfills (you can compost them if your city program allows for it). Great resource on paper towel production.

Eco-solution

Make your own cloth unpaper towels. I used old worn clothing to make ours. I cut them into the size I wanted and that is all. Some people sew them too but homeslice didn't have time for that. Perhaps in the future though.

Pine-Sol

The Impact

Well it is a chemical and it has a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). Don't let MSDSs scare you, they are written based on worse case scenario, they are not written for the bottle you buy off the shelf. But allow them to educate you about what is in products and what their impact can be on you. In this case it is Alkyl alcohol ethoxylates which is a surfactant and causes Pine-Sol to be an eye irritant.  And it is made by Clorox....I shouldn't have to say anything more.

Eco-Solution

If you are using Pine-Sol because you love the smell (it reminds me of cleaning lats as a Girl Guide) look for Dr. Bronner's products with the same smell or use tea-tree oil in your home made cleaner.

Green Works

The Impact

This about sums it up and it is made by Clorox.

Eco-Solution

Make your own cleaner with Dr. Bronner and Vinegar. If you are looking to buy a cleaner I would recommend Method or Gloves Off.

Clorox

The Impact

It's bleach, it's nasty, it stinks and it is killing you. Heck right on the bottle it says 'CAUTION IRRITANT' and has a boney hand. This is the MSDS for the Clean-Up spray and this is the MSDS for the toilet cleaner. Scary. These products impact not only the environment in their production but they enter our waterways as we use them and then also end up in the landfill when they are disposed of. They also have a negative impact on our health. They are irritants and corrosive. In my mind they are just not safe for use. 

Eco-Solution

Vinegar, vinegar, vinegar. Don't believe the hype that you need bleach to have a healthy home and keep your family safe. It is BS. If you want something specific for your toilet that isn't home made I recommend Ecos.

Garbage Bags

The Impact

They are made from plastic and they do not break down in the landfill. This includes the bio-degradable kind because the conditions within the landfill are not conducive to biodegradation (do you ever see a landfill getting shorter once it is "closed". I didn't think so).

Eco-Solution

Avoid using garbage bags when you can. We don't use them in any of our bathrooms. Our waste goes right into the can itself and then when full we dump it into a bag in the garage. We soon will be able to do this in our kitchen too which will result in us no longer having bags inside a garbage bag. We will use 1 garbage bag every 3-4 weeks. 

* I didn't include tissues and toilet paper as pictured above because they don't have anything to do with spring cleaning.

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