Good Quote: Umbra on Green Cleaning

We always like reading the "Ask Umbra" column over at Grist.org. Her answers are well-researched and often funny.

We were particularly charmed by her investigation of Method products last week, and we really like something she had to say about green cleaning in general.

Quote after the jump ...

Here's Umbra's advice:

Beware of buying stuff you don't actually need. Yes, we need to purchase cleansers made without known poisons and pollutants, and we need laundry detergent, dish soap, and maybe dishwashing liquid. But almost all of our other general household cleaning needs can be met with soap, white vinegar, baking soda, borax, a sponge, scrubby, and a pile of old T-shirts.

image via marinegirl;Flickr.com

Comments (3)

Add hydrogen peroxide to that list. I got paint on my carpet today and the Seventh Generation carpet cleaner got it right out. I check the ingredients and I'm convinced it was the peroxide that did the trick!

Yes, and even when you're buying "green" products, they're still packaged in plastic, and they still mostly involve transporting water, which is not green at all.

Buy a box of baking soda. Cardboard box, no water, everyone's a winner.

I clean houses of a living, and bring my supplies with me. The only things I use are BonAmi for scrubbing, and a homemade spray: a small amount of rubbing alcohol, with an even smaller bit of ammonia(maybe a half teaspoon), and a drop of dish soap,(this goes in a big, reuseable spray bottle, diluted with a lot of water). Thats all. Floors get washed with hot water, quickly, and dried if they're wood or laminate. If you're cleaning more often than once every two weeks, vinegar as a spray works just fine; most of my clients don't want to pay for me to come that often.