Green Acidic Cleaners

Yesterday, I talked about green alkaline cleaners. Today, we will talk about the acidic cleaners and what they do well.

White distilled vinegar-deodorizes, grease cutter, stain remover (alkaline or base stains)

Lemon Juice (contains citric acid)- bleaches, disinfects, deodorizes, cuts grease
     -can use either fresh or bottled
Hydrogen Peroxide (works as an oxygen bleach)-kills germs

These along with the cleaners I mentioned yesterday will clean about anything. The next post I will talk about soaps and oils. These added in small proportions to the above ingredients can knock-out most dirty jobs.

Happy cleaning!

Green Alkaline Cleaners

The two power horses of green cleaning are white distilled vinegar (acid) and baking soda (base/alkaline). If you have just these two ingredients in your repertoire you can clean about anything. With that said sometimes you need a cleaner that is specific to the task. Here is a list of the green alkaline or base cleaners and what they clean well.

Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)-stain remover for acid stains, mild abrasive, shines up aluminum, chrome, silver and other metals, grease and dirt cutter, deodorizer
Washing Soda (sodium carbonate)-laundry, a little stronger than baking soda so good for jobs baking soda needs a little help completing, can usually be found in your laundry aisle of most stores
Borax (sodium borate)-disinfection (also can be found in laundry aisle)
Cornstarch-mild and absorbent cleaner
Cornmeal-mild and absorbent cleaner
Cream of tartar-makes great paste for scrubbing cookware
Salt (sodium chloride)-natural scrubbing agent

Happy cleaning!!!

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.