During Home Hacks month here at Re-nest, we've given you a lot of recipes for safe, nontoxic cleaners that you can make at home (for the bathroom and for the kitchen). If you've been using conventional cleaners with a list of questionable ingredients, the best thing for your health and for the environment is to ditch them immediately. But you've got to do it the right way.
Whatever you do, don't just toss your cleaners into the trash or down the drain. The last thing we want is for those gross chemicals to end up in our waterways.
Gather up your cleaners and haul them to a hazardous waste collection. It might take a little effort, but it is really worth it.
If you don't know where to take hazardous waste material, contact your city's waste department. Our city (Berkeley, Ca) has a Toxic Management Division.
Is your hazardous waste collection easy to access?
(Image: Flickr member Collin Anderson licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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I'd want to save the spray containers pictured above. They are really handy for your own diy cleaners.
I think using up what you have makes greener sense than throwing away something because it doesn't fit your new eco-style. Use it up, don't re-purchase, and you'll be doing everyone a favor.
Save the packaging (like the bottles) and don't over think this. Common household cleaners aren't "Hazardous waste". Showing up with your can of Comet is just silly.
what troubles me is the packaging...even green companies or eco-friendly products come in plastic cans/sprayers/containers...we need a serious thgt in this direction too...using ingredients which are safer for the planet may be a start...but then we have a long way to go in terms of packaging being sustainable and eco-friendly and not just recyclable.
I completely agree with Palmetto. I've been using my own homemade cleaners for the last year or two, but I still have some lingering products from before I went DIY. It always seems like a better option to keep what you have once you've made the initial purchase. Don't buy it again, but don't get rid of it either. It was produced, you bought it, now use it up.
most plastic packaging has a smaller footprint than most "green" alternatives - plant based plastics take a lot of oil to produce - and reuse and recycling really are huge energy savers. plastic is an easy target because it doesn't feel green - but the alternatives - metal (mining, smelting), paper (clear cutting, water pollution), and glass (pit mines, high embodied energy) all have their downsides too.
I recently saw a documentary in which several ordinary families try to go green, making all their own cleaning & personal care products. When one of the families brought their old cleaning products to the hazardous waste depot, they were disappointed to learn that the products were being re-sold for cheap prices. I don't know where the show was made, sorry.
As for hazardous waste depots, there isn't one where I currently live, which is in a remote northern location. (We don't even have recycling, if you can believe that.) I used to live in a large city, but the depot was only accessible by car so I was never able to go.
I'm planning to use up what I have. I don't have much of it anyways, since I generally use all-purpose cleaner for most stuff. Then I'll keep the bottle for my homemade stuff.
The old spray bottles from the cleaners you no longer want to use will probably have those chemicals leftover in them.
Also, finishing up those cleaners is still going to put hazardous materials in your home. Taking them to a recycling facility will have them disposed of in a hopefully safe way.
Also, it doesn't disappoint me to hear that they are re-selling the cleaners. Most people would probably buy the same thing at full price, so they might as well be able to use your leftovers.
Ideally these types of cleaners would be illegal.
While I see the point, I don't quite agree with the "get it outta here as quickly as possible" notion. Just because you weren't "enlightened" before your purchase doesn't negate the fact that you bought the product in the first place. There will be a transition from chemicals to green, but whether you do it today or after your old stuff is gone doesn't make the old stuff no longer exist.
What does the facility DO with the stuff you donate? I've seen a lot of post advocating the "safe" disposal of these suddenly-misfit cleaners, but I never see anything about what happens afterwards. So then, are you sure this is the green way to go?