Finding Greener Cleaners

It wasn't so long ago that you didn't have a choice. If you wanted a clean house, you had to use a commercial cleaner that emitted horrible-smelling fumes and contained questionable chemicals. These bottles of wonder clean may have kept you from using a lot of good old-fashioned elbow grease and did a good job of cleaning, but at what price? These products that we've inhaled, absorbed through our skin, ingested through food prepared on these surfaces, and sent to our waterways all have poison control information on their labels.

Now we have greener choices in our cleaning products and our cleaning tools. Just check out your local supermarket and you'll see plenty of new products on the market that are better for you and better for the environment. (Many are even similarly priced to traditional chemical-based cleaning products, and work just as well.)

When trying to decide what new cleaning product to purchase you need to look first at the ingredients. Green products are proud to list all their ingredients and some go so far as to explain what the ingredients are and what they do. Plant-based is usually better for you than petroleum-based. If you're not sure what an ingredient is, look it up online and get the facts.

Image by EasyEcoBlog via FlickrLook for independent seals of approval, not at the products' self-proclamations of "all natural" or "fully biodegradable". Independent 3rd party seals such as the one by the EPA show that they've passed certain criteria regarding the environment and your health. (For some more tips, and recommendations for truly natural products, as well as a FREE greener home checklist for reducing other toxins in the home, visit http://www.newholisticliving.com/toxicload.html.)

As far as your cleaning tools go, you can go greener here too. Instead of using throw away paper towels to clean, get a package of cloth diapers. They do a good job of absorbing and will last a long, long time. Give old t-shirts a second life by using them for garage and outside jobs. Another option is to use microfiber multi-purpose kitchen cloths. Not only do they absorb a ton of liquids when cleaning up spills, but they can be used to dust furniture when dry. If you must use paper towels, choose a brand that uses recycled paper and is chlorine-free.

Green cleaners may or may not be more expensive than traditional commercial cleaners, but I believe they're a better choice all around. Don't decide on a cleaner based on price; take a look at the ingredients and then try it out. It may take a little testing to find the product that works best for you, but you'll find one and your environment will thank you.

Related articles on Green Cleaning Products

• Seek the fine print on household products touting 'green' credentials (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• How Environmentally Friendly Cleaning Works (brighthub.com)
• Green cleaning: There's the scrub (independent.co.uk)