Green Cleaning

I have been working this week on putting a lesson plan together on green cleaning for the sustainable living class I teach. We have been doing the green cleaning thing here at our home long before it became popular. We have several severe allergies to chemicals so we adopted the cleaners of years gone by and have been cleaning with them ever since. You can buy the prepared green cleaners but be ready to spend a small fortune. As an alternative, homemade cleaners are easy to use and very economical. Looking for a way to save a little money then make your own cleaners. Here are some basics.

There are two basic types of cleaning products-acids and bases (alkaline). They interact with each other and neutralize each other. For example, if you have a tomato stain (acid) on your table cloth then you would use a base (baking soda) to get it out. If you had a build-up of alkaline detergent on your tablecloth, you would put vinegar (acid) in your rinse water to get it out.

The two power horses of cleaning are baking soda and white distilled vinegar. With these in your home you can clean about anything. Tomorrow, I will talk about the different acid and base cleaners and their uses. Over the next couple of days we will then talk about some specific ways to clean common household items.