Home is a mirror of your personality. Needless to say, we all have some kind of emotional attachment with our home. We want to keep it well organized and properly cleaned and decorated. But trust me, it’s not easy. Just last week a friend of mine who is a housekeeping manager with a five star hotel visited my house. She felt like crazy after looking around. But she shared some of the quick and simple tricks that anyone can use to keep his/her house properly cleaned and organized. If you are struggling with home cleaning and wondering about how to get it right, then here’s the post worth reading. Today I am going to share with you the list of 22 eco friendly home cleaning tips that I personally use to clean my home quickly and easily. I can vouch for these cleaning tricks because it works perfectly.
Home means different thing to different people. For some it is the place of comfort, safety and peace. For others it is a temple where we inhabit while for the rest, home is not just a place but a feeling. It is where our heart dwells. Your home reflects your social stand and shows the kind of person you are. In other words, home forms a part of the first impression. A well-decorated, neat and clean home shows how much tidy, disciplined and sophisticated you are as a person. Therefore, it is your duty to take good care of your home by keeping it properly cleaned, organized and up to date. But it’s not easy, especially when you have a big family with several rooms.
No matter how many times you wipe the floor or get the dusting done, unless you use the right techniques, you may not be able to get it right. Even if you use highly priced cleaning supplies, if your techniques are not right, you may not get the best result. But nothing to worry, because i am going to help you get it right.
Talking about home cleaning, it is always better to go green and use eco friendly tricks and hacks. The commercial market products are not only costly, but also contain lot of chemicals and toxins. Regular usage of these products may have long-term adverse effects. Many chemicals lead to various health problems, some of which can turn fatal. In order to keep yourself and your family member’s safe, it is necessary to use eco friendly ways of cleaning homes. Not only will your home be clean and smell good, it will also remain free of the disease causing germs.
Talking so much about eco-friendly ways to clean your home, do you know what eco friendly actually means or why is it so important? Let me brief you about that first, before getting into detail.
Why is it important to become eco friendly?
Being environment friendly or using eco friendly ways to clean home is very important in our daily lifestyle. You must have come across this word quite often, and literally everywhere, starting from job advertisements, vacation homes, politics, fashion to even dating sites. So what is it?
Well, being eco friendly means living with intent. The intent is to prevent any harm to your environment. We should try to preserve our planet and all the living things that dwell in it. This way we can maintain the perfect ecological balance as well prevent the exploitation of the natural resources. It will also lessen the risk of harmful diseases, disasters, global warming and other calamities and thereby make this planet a better place to live in.
22 Eco friendly home cleaning tips worth trying
Most of the things we do have a positive or negative impact on our environment. God has gifted us the most important thing that is our brain with which we can think rationally. Therefore, we, being the superior living beings, have the ability to alter our choices for the betterment of the environment. Every little positive initiative you take will eventually add up the good effect. So why not start with eco friendly ways to clean your home? Come let’s check the list of top 22 eco friendly home cleaning tips that will make cleaning fast and easy.
Cleaning windowpanes and mirrors
You can clean windowpanes, glass and mirror using newspapers, white vinegar and water. Most of us take newspapers at home and later throw them away after reading. Well why not use them in cleaning the windows and mirrors in your home. You can simply spray a mixture of water and white vinegar on the glass and then wipe them clean with your old newspapers. Old newspaper works wonderfully in cleaning all types of glass.
Clean bathrooms with white vinegar
Spray your bathroom surfaces with undiluted vinegar. Let it soak, then wipe it and wash thoroughly with hot water. This will not only clean the surfaces but also keep your bathroom germ free and remove the foul odor.
Replace paper towels with your old towels
You can use your old scratchy, torn towels for cleaning purpose. Just cut them into smaller sizes and use them in your day-to-day life. These will serve as much better cleaning rags than the other disposable paper ones.
Use coffee to freshen up your refrigerator
Well all know coffee has lot of health benefits, but do you know that it can be used to eliminate odors from your fridge? Well yes, you can place of cup of coffee grounds inside your fridge to get rid of the funky odors. Not only fridge, you can use this trick almost everywhere to deodorize.
Use lemon as a natural deodorizer
Talking about foul odors, another natural agent that fights the strong funky odors is the lemon. You can eliminate even the strongest of odor like the pungent smell of onion, garlic, fish etc with a piece of lemon or freshly extracted lemon juice.
Use vinegar to clean floors
Well the perfect way to keep your home germ free and hygienic is by using white vinegar. It is a natural disinfectant that can be used for cleaning purposes. You can clean all types of floors with it except floors made of granite and slate. Even you can clean the door handles, countertops and telephones with white vinegar. For best results, you can use a mixture of white vinegar, alcohol, water and dishwashing liquid especially for the unwaxed wooden floors and tiles.
Polish metals using lemon
Apart from being an excellent deodorizer, lemons can also be used for polishing purposes. Take a slice of lemon and dip it in salt. Then use it to get rid of food residue and other grime from the chrome surfaces or the stainless steels. After rubbing the utensils, rinse them with water.
Use salt to sanitize sponges
You use sponges to clean every possible utensil or thing. Do you know that they may contain bacteria those might get transmitted from one thing to other if you use them back to back without cleaning? Normal cleaning sponges with water does not help you get rid of the bacteria. So soak them in dense salted water for about 2 hours. This will properly sanitize them before further usage.
Clean microwaves with baking soda and lemon
Most of us use microwaves at home to cook or heat food quickly but cleaning them can cause trouble. Well, not now because with baking soda and lemon you can clean them easily. Place lemon slices into water bowl and nuke them for a while. Close the door of the microwave and let it stay for around 10 minutes. After that, wipe the interior of the microwave. For results that are more effective, you can also use baking and water paste to scrub the gunk away.
Use old socks for dusting
If you have old socks at home, then you can use them for dusting purposes. Wear them as hand gloves and clean the dust particles away from the surfaces. However, make sure that the socks are clean enough otherwise they may stink. The athletic socks best serves this purpose of dusting.
Use salt and lemon juice to remove rust
The rust surfaces are very hard to clean and the rust cleaners found in market contain lot of toxins and thus not safe to be used everywhere. Make a paste of limejuice and salt and coat them on the rust surfaces. Let it stay for few hours and later scrub it off. In order to clean the kettle, specially the inside, put some lemon juice in it and then pour water in to it. Let it stay that night. In the morning, boil it for around 10 minutes. This procedure will help you to get rid of the stains.
Clean drains with baking soda and vinegar
Unclogging drains can seriously give you a headache. However, you can do it easily with baking soda and vinegar. Plug the drain first. Then dump around 3 cups of baking soda followed by around 2 cups of vinegar in the drain. Let it remain for half an hour and then wash it with a cup of boiling water. Frequent or regular usage of this procedure makes your task easy.
Go for green dry cleaning methods
The dry cleaners that we use conventionally must be avoided as they use Perchloroethylene, an industrial solvent very toxic in nature and is known to cause several health hazards. Instead go for alternatives like carbon dioxide cleaning and wet (or soap and water) cleaning methods. These methods are very environment friendly and safe for human health as well.
Use olive oil and lemon juice to polish woods
If you want to clean your wooden furniture, you can use the mixture of olive oil and lemon juice. This non-toxic solution will leave your furniture dust free and shinier.
Use baking soda to deodorize carpets
You can use baking soda to clean your stinky carpets. Baking soda is a naturally deodorizer which will remove the foul odors from the carpets. Just sprinkle baking soda over them and let it stay overnight. In the morning, thoroughly vacuum them. You will find that the foul smell is no more.
Use grapefruit to scrub your bathtub
If you are planning to clean your bathtub, go for grapefruit that is far better than the caustic ones. All you need to do is to cut the fruit into two halves, sprinkle salt over each of them and then squeeze out the juice while cleaning. Following which, you need to rinse the tub thoroughly with water. You will notice your tub is already clean and is also smelling fresh.
Open your shoes near the doors
Shoes are the ones that carry all the dirt, oil, animal waste and innumerable other toxins. Therefore, make it a habit to keep a shoe rack right besides the entrance. This will prevent you from entering your rooms with those dirty unhygienic shoes. Also, maintain a good doormat near the entrance. This way less dirt will accumulate in the interior of your house and will thereby lessen your work of cleaning them.
Clean your fireplace with tartar and water
If you want to clean the exterior of your fireplace and get rid of all the soot and smoke smudges, then go for tartar and water. Rub the paste of tartar and water on the stains and then scrub it off once it has dried.
Plant more trees in your garden
If you want to reduce the air pollution inside your home, or surrounding areas naturally then plant trees in your garden. Trees clean the polluted air and supplies more oxygen to you. In case you do not have space for garden, use vases or tubs to plant small trees.
Go for green cleaning services
In this busy world, not everyone gets time or the energy to clean their homes frequently. Therefore, if you fall under that section of people, you can take the help of professional cleaning companies that offers eco friendly cleaning services for homes.
Strategically design your home
Proper designing your home reduces half the workload. It creates spaces that are comparatively much healthy, clean and requires lesser substances to maintain. In case of large buildings, good clean-ability is a big boon as it is very cost effective, relieving you of the huge cleaning cost.
Let fresh air enter your rooms
If you keep your home closed up for a long time, it simply starts to stink. The inside air is more toxic than the outdoor air. So you must keep the windows open in order to let the fresh air in. This will help you reduce the stuffiness as well make your rooms much more windy and fresh. Positioning fans strategically helps to improve the quality of air inside your room. Try out by keeping one facing outward direction near the window.
Over to you
Daily cleaning of home is a tedious and complicated task. But when you know how to get it right, it becomes much easier and faster to keep your home clean and tidy. Today we have discussed about the best and most effective eco friendly home cleaning tips that will make cleaning fast and easy. Not only these tricks will help you clean your home perfectly, but it’ll also help you to keep yourself, your family and your surrounding environment safe.
It is not just one alone, but all of us must try to keep our surrounding green. Every little initiative of yours will add up to the overall benefit. So why spend lot of bucks buying commercial home cleaning products, when you can clean your home using natural ingredients like lemon, water and soda?
Therefore, spread awareness by using these eco friendly home cleaning tips to clean your home quickly and easily. And if you know any other home cleaning hacks that work perfectly, then feel free to share it by commenting below.
