My wife recently cleaned our oven. Not the inside but the top. You know, around the elements where it is just burnt on. We recently have changed to natural cleaning. So when it came time for the oven, my wife used non-toxic general purpose cleaner. While this is highly concentrated, the stains were also quite old. So, she used it full strength. She didn’t need a mask or gloves to do this. She just let it soak & then the baked-on crud slowly came off with some scrubbing.
Here’s the point. The various commercial cleaners from the store contain petroleum distillates. They produce potentially deadly fumes & are harmful to our environment. Not to mention the fact they cost much more per ounce then the natural cleaners. Often their packaging is non-recyclable.
The store-bought cleaners are also pre-mixed. With the natural cleaners, you decide how strong you would like the solution. Just one quart of natural cleaner can make up to 32 gallons of safe cleaning solution. One quart of cleaner from the store equals one quart of cleaner.
The natural cleaning products are just as effective as their toxic counterparts. It’s easy to save money with organic cleaning since the products are concentrated. We have cleaned quite a few things with the cleaner so far, & still have quite a bit of concentrate left. At just pennies per quart of diluted solution, there isn’t a much more effective cleaner out there for the money.
Natural cleaners are effective everywhere in the home. While the kitchen & bathroom contain most of the more harmful cleaners, they can be found in all areas. Even air fresheners (aerosol) are harmful. Natural cleaning products can provide a safe home environment & help save money.
John Marshall a.k.a. “Mr. Green Clean” is an advocate of natural cleaning. More info available at http://www.completegreencleaning.com Copyright (c) John Marshall.
Ok, you’re probably thinking, is she crazy?! Who would use Drano to clean their pans? Have a look at this guy:
Listen to how he coughs just while doing this! It horrifies me to think of anyone breathing in such caustic fumes.
Ok, yes I’m using an extreme example here to make my point but do you realize that the chemical cocktail most people have under their kitchen sink is just as bad? Every day you’re exposed to fumes from chemicals with the worst being oven cleaners, bathroom cleaners and dry cleaning fluid. Only 2 generations ago, most of these cleaners did not exist.
I have used chemical free cleaners in my home for years now and recently I noticed what a HUGE impact it has had. A friend suggested we go to a nail bar for some pampering. Just walking past the place I was starting to feel light-headed by the fumes but obviously not everyone felt the same because the place was packed! I’ve never has asthma or bronchitis or anything like that but as soon as I went in I found myself coughing.
When I was used regular chemical cleaners in my home I would never have had a reaction like that. I used to think harshly of people who did, I thought they just needed to toughen up and not be so sensitive. But now I know that coughing is a sign my body is trying to protect me by getting foreign objects out of delicate lung tissue and I feel grateful that my body is so smart.
Cancer and disease rates are skyrocketing and now these chemicals in our food, the air we breathe, the products we use on our skin build up in our bodies and not only affects us but has been shown to change our DNA so that our future children are affected also. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that the next generation have even higher fertility problems than our generation has seen.
So I ask you to trial chemical free cleaners for the next 2 months and see what a difference it makes to you and your family. Over the coming week I’ll have numerous articles on chemical free cleaning.
Do you want to know the cleaning facts that are not widely publicised? If you’ve ever read the ingredients on the labels of your household cleaners, you’d know that they contain a number of different chemicals. You’re also probably aware that these chemicals have a distinct smell or odour. This article is intended to tell you what you probably don’t know. All the cleaning facts in this article have a direct affect on you and it should be your right to know them.
Our cleaning facts research states that there are over 75,000 chemicals licensed for commercial use in today’s world, with about 2,000 new synthetic chemicals licensed each year. A large number of these chemicals are suspected carcinogens or are thought to cause a number of health problems. It may surprise you to know that only 600 of these chemicals have been adequately tested. Commercial cleaning product companies are under no legal obligation to research how their products might harm human health. What’s more, only 1% of toxins are required to be listed on the product label. This is because companies classify their ingredients as ‘trade secrets’. -Lorie Dwornick, researcher, educator and activist, 2002
Want more cleaning facts? According to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, chemical levels in the home are up to 70 times higher than outside. It has been proven that air quality inside the average American household is 2 to 5 times more contaminated than the outside air. This is due largely to the chemicals found in commercial products such as cosmetics and cleaning products. In 1985, research by the EPA concluded that chemicals in household cleaners are about 3 times more likely to cause cancer than any other air pollutant. Did you know that in the early 1900’s, only 1 in every 8,000 Americans developed cancer. This ratio has dropped to 1 in every 3 today!
Our cleaning facts research has also alerted us to the dangers concerning our children. Over a million Americans are treated for exposure to household cleaning products. The majority of these are children under the age of 12. When you take into account the weight difference between that of a child and that of an adult, the amount of air, food and water consumed by a child is far greater than that of an adult. This means that they are exposed more to pollutants than adults. A child’s immune system is also less developed and their developing cells are more easily damaged. Pollutants in the air tend to be more concentrated towards ground level. Children breathe air which contains more pollutants simply because of their height. They also tend to spend more time playing on the floor and in contact with cleaning product residues. Those chemicals which are tested are only tested for adults. Children are not considered. Does this sound worrying? What affect is our chemical lifestyle having on our children’s health?
The chemical industry claims that very low levels of exposure to these chemicals are safe, yet there have been no exposure studies completed for the large majority of these chemicals. There is also limited information as to how these chemicals interact with each other. According to the EPA, combined chemicals are far more dangerous. Did you know that mixing Ammonia with bleach results in a toxic gas extremely lethal to humans? If you also check the ingredients of many household cleaners you will find that they often contain both ammonia and bleach.
If you remember any of these cleaning facts, remember this. Petrochemical cleaning products are absorbed easily through our skin. The chemicals travel through our blood stream and are stored in our fatty tissues. Over time, the build up of these toxic chemicals causes many health problems, including cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. All this can be avoided with the use of ‘green’ products which contain no toxic chemicals and are much safer for the environment. You should also be aware that all the chemicals that you wash down your drains will inevitably end up in our rivers. The water in our rivers is put through a water treatment plant where it is mixed with even more toxic chemicals. It is then returned to us in our taps. Everything that we do to the environment we also do to ourselves!
5 Interesting Cleaning Facts
Cleaning Fact 1: Cold water will inhibit the spread of bacteria and germs. Hot water only encourages the growth of nasty organisms.
Cleaning Fact 2: Antibacterial soaps are really not necessary in the home and may do more harm than good.
Cleaning Fact 3: Commercial dish washing detergents often leave chemical residues on your dishes that accumulate each time you wash them. Those chemicals are absorbed into your food.
Cleaning Fact 4: If a chemical kills half of a group of test animals it is labeled toxic. If the lab animals survives after being exposed to an amount greater than that listed it is labeled non-toxic. These tests are not specific to humans and do not consider long term exposure. (Lab animals often include mice which have a stronger immune system than humans.)
Cleaning Fact 5: Women who work at home are at a 54% greater risk of developing cancer than women who work away from home. A 15 year study concluded that this is a direct result of the chemicals in household products.
-Toronto Indoor Air Conference 1990
Sources: http://www.cleaningpro.com/toxic.cfm http://www.getipm.com/pesticides/kids.htm -U.S. Government, E.P.A. -American Cancer Society
