Cleaning your Home Without Toxic Chemicals

Catherine Doyle explains how you can replace cleaning products with natural cleaning products to reduce the chemical load in your home.

If you are working on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, then it makes sense to clean your home using natural cleaning products. Many common commercial cleaning products include harsh chemicals which can cause problems for some people and are often bad for the environment. Here we describe how some of the greener and healthier natural alternatives can be used to clean your home. As an added bonus, ingredients like white vinegar, sodium bicarbonate, and lemon juice are often cheaper than commercial cleaning products, so you get to save money too!

Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda)

Sodium bicarbonate (also known as baking soda, bicarb, and bicarb. soda) has a variety of uses for the green cleaner:

It is abrasive and acts as a mild disinfectant, so it can be used to clean surfaces like kitchen worktops, bathroom tiles, sinks and baths, without scratching. Sprinkle some sodium bicarbonate on to a damp cloth and scrub the surface gently. Rinse thoroughly afterwards.
For more stubborn cleaning tasks like cleaning the oven, make a paste by mixing sodium bicarbonate with a little water, then use a scourer to remove burnt on food, and rinse with water afterwards. Cleaning the oven regularly makes the job much easier, but if you've left it a while and it's proving difficult to clean, you can also leave the paste on overnight.
Bicarb deodorizes, so you can use it to remove bad smells. For example:

To freshen carpets, sprinkle on sodium bicarbonate, leave for a while, and then vacuum off.
Sprinkle some baking soda into the bottom of bins after cleaning to absorb bad smells. You can also put a small container of sodium bicarbonate in your fridge or freezer to absorb the smells created by pungent foodstuffs.

Vinegar

Ordinary white vinegar is another great cleaning standby.

You can make a spray for general cleaning, using 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water.
Great for keeping windows, mirrors and tiles streak free. Vinegar is so good at this, that its often found in commercial glass cleaners.
Vinegar removes limescale. Descale your kettle by boiling up 1 cup of water mixed with 1 cup of vinegar.

Note: Don't use vinegar on marble, as it will damage the surface.

Vinegar and sodium bicarbonate mixed together have great cleaning power. Here are a couple of ideas:

Keep drains clear - put down some bicarb first, then pour in the vinegar - it will fizz as the chemicals react, leave for a while, then flush with hot water. For best results, use weekly. (A handful of salt followed by a bucket of hot water is another safe option for drain cleaning.)
Clean the toilet bowl using a sprinking of bicarb, followed by a splash of vinegar, and scour the bowl.

Lemon Juice

If you don't have any vinegar, lemon juice is a good alternative. Like vinegar, lemon juice is a good deodoriser, cuts through grease and dissolves mineral deposits. (As with vinegar, don't use lemon juice on marble.)

Lemon juice is also a mild bleach. It's great for adding to your wash, before hanging laundry to dry in the sunshine to remove stains and get those whites really white!

Essential Oils

Besides smelling great, many essential oils inhibit the growth of bacteria. Some useful essential oils for cleaning include:

Eucalyptus - Eucalyptus is great for removing grease and oil. Apply to a cotton bud to spot clean oil splatters near the cooker. You can also use it to remove the residue from stickers. (Test on a small hidden area first.)
Tea tree - Tea tree has anti-fungal, anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties, making it a great addition to home-made cleaners. Add a couple of drops to your bicarb paste or vinegar/water spray.
Lemon - Lemon is antibacterial and antifungal. It's a great addition to kitchen cleaners, as the smell won't linger in the way that some of the heavier herb oils can.

You do need to take care with essential oils, as they can be dangerous. Read our safety tips for essential oils.

Commercial Green Cleaning

If you want to reduce your chemical load, but don't feel brave enough to go it alone just yet, then you might want to investigate some of the environmentally-friendly natural cleaning products available from health food shops, green online retailers and some supermarkets.