Green Ways to Clean

Green Ways to Clean With Ingredients From Your Pantry

By Laura Stanley on October 11, 2012

Do you scrub and shine with harsh chemicals or prefer all-natural options?

If you want to go green when it comes to cleaning, check out some simple and safe ways to use things you can find in your kitchen to get a sparkling clean house!

Vinegar

Uses: I am a vinegar nut! I use white vinegar in the laundry, to clean fruits and veggies, to sanitize my fridge shelves and my wooden cutting boards, and to get hard water deposits off the heating coil in the dishwasher. You can use it for practically everything from cleaning mirrors to getting dirt and pesticides off your strawberries. Apple cider vinegar is also good for burning fat, easing sore feet, and helping with stubborn calluses on your heels.

Why it works: Vinegar is highly acidic. This means that, when applied to something of a base nature, it will neutralize (in other words, level out the pH to 7). It’s important to remember that vinegar is acidic because it will react with basic products like baking soda (which creates carbon dioxide bubbles). The high acid properties of vinegar also make it antibacterial.

This is why it works so well at cleaning your wooden cutting boards. It’ll kill any germs from raw meat, but unlike soap, it won’t leave a residue in the wood. Both properties work to get your laundry good and clean. It’ll kill any germs crawling in the fabric, and it will also lift out body oil, and neutralize the fabric. You can sub vinegar for your fabric softener, and it will work better at getting your fabrics to a natural softness without any leftover residue, and despite protests about the vinegar smell, it does let the scent of your detergent shine through; you won't smell like salad dressing.

Baking Soda

Uses: Baking soda can be turned into a gentle, abrasive paste by simply adding water. This mixture can do anything! It’s great for removing stains on your teeth. It’s gentle enough to scrub away the dead skin on your face and tough enough to handle stubborn, baked on grease. You can give yourself a microdermabrasion facial and clean your cook top all with one product.

It’s odor absorbent, so you can store it in your fridge to keep the garlic smell from attacking your butter, or you can sprinkle some in the bottom of your trash can to keep old food from stinking up your home. It’s also fantastic for lifting pet smells from your carpet. All you have to do is sprinkle it around, let it sit for 15 minutes, and vacuum it right up.

Why it works: Baking soda is a basic chemical with a crystalline structure. When heated to 140 degrees (F), it decomposes. What this means is dies in a bubble of gas, which is why it helps to add fluff to baked goods. As we’ve already mentioned, the crystalline nature of baking soda makes it abrasive. Because it is a fine powder, it is gentle enough to scrub out stains without scratching surfaces. It’s odor absorbent power comes from its ability to neutralize acids, like the lactic acid of spoiling milk, and because of where it sits on the pH scale, it also has the power to balance highly basic chemicals (like those in spoiling meat).

Hydrogen Peroxide

Uses: Hydrogen Peroxide is commonly used for cleaning up cuts and preventing infections. You can also use it in detox baths, whitening teeth, disinfecting kitchen surfaces, and brightening colored laundry. There are many different solutions of different concentrations. You can mix it up with dish soap too, to create a powerful stain remover that works on those stubborn deodorant armpit stains.

Why it works: It is very basic, which makes it highly reactive and a strong oxidizer. Because of this, in high concentrations, it can be used as a bleaching agent. Peroxide blondes use the chemical to lighten their hair. Most Hydrogen Peroxide comes in a low 3 to 8% concentration, though for disinfectant purposes, it is available in 30%. It’s especially good because its reactive properties make it antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal.

Handy Home Cleaning Solutions

For Germ Free Counters - Put white vinegar in one spray bottle, and hydrogen peroxide in a separate spray bottle. First spray the counters down with vinegar and wipe it off. This will kill most of the bacterial. Spray again with the hydrogen peroxide to kill any viruses, bacteria, or fungi leftover and also to remove any stains. Wipe away with a white towel (something that won’t be bleached). You have a surface clean enough to eat off of!

For Hard Water Deposits on Dishwasher Coils - Make a paste of baking soda and water to apply to the coils. Soak a towel in vinegar and wrap the towel around the coils. The chemical reaction will shock the deposits so they easily crumble off. Follow with a hot water rinse, and you’ll have a clean dishwasher. An added bonus: it will also neutralize odors in your dishwasher.

For Perpetually Stinky Bath Towels - Let the towels first soak in hot water with ½ cup of white vinegar. This will loosen up grime, kill bacteria and mildew, and pull up stubborn body oils. Then run through a warm wash with baking soda. The baking soda will destroy any odors still left in the towel’s fibers and neutralize the towel’s pH.

For Yellow Armpit Stains - Create a paste of dish soap and baking soda. Scrub it in with a nail brush. The dish soap busts up the greasy part and the baking soda will scrub up the stuck in deodorant bits and neutralize the odors. After you’d adequately scrubbed it in, let it set for half an hour. Then pour on hydrogen peroxide to lift up any yellow color. Wash as usual. For super stubborn armpit stains, you may repeat this process until they’re good as new.

I hope you found this as useful as I did and I promise this is all the go green stuff I have for a while.
Stop in tomorrow for my first sponsor giveaway! There are some pretty great things up for grabs.

Happy Tuesday!

Today I'm linking up with:
The Life Of a Not So Ordinary Wife