| Life Lessons - how to have a cleaner, greener home |
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Take care of your family’s health and do your bit for the environment by taking a look at this guide. If you try one new thing every week, each step you take will help you to create a safer home whilst improving your health and your environment.
DUST Dust is full of many toxic substances in the home. Children are particularly at risk as they typically ingest five times more dust than adults so, what do you do? • Leave your shoes off at the door, and use a dust-removing doormat which can reduce the amount of lead in the home by a factor of six. Pesticides also remain in carpets for decades, where sunlight and bacteria are not found to break them down. • Bare floors are the best option – carpets trap a lot of dust, and vacuuming will not remove it all. Alternatively, use rugs made from natural fibres that don’t use toxic chemicals that let off chemical gases. • If you do use carpets, nail them down with strips instead of glueing them to the floor, to minimise exposure to more chemicals. • Make sure that children and pets are not in the room when you vacuum, and open all windows and doors whenever possible. • Avoid indoor pesticides – cockroaches are tough creatures (although unlikely to cause harm) and the chemicals used to kill them do a great deal of harm to us! Cleanliness is a good way to keep insects down. • Dust, in the form of human skin, also accumulates in mattresses and pillows – take them outside and beat them, to minimise a breeding ground for bugs and other allergy causing microbes. Improve ventilation and air quality • House plants help clean up the air – spider plants, philodendron, and others have been shown to absorb as much as 80% of formaldehyde in a room in 24 hours. • Improve the ventilation of your kitchen, bathrooms with showers, and utility rooms. Most people’s highest exposure to chloroform is from water vapour from showers, boiling water and washing machines. • Ionising air filters remove particles as small as 0.1 microns, but cheaper models tend to emit ozone and electromagnetic fields. Clean and green • Most household cleaning can be done with a half-and-half mixture of vinegar and water, or liquid soap and baking soda. • Use baking soda and hot water for basins, tubs and tile cleaning. • Use baking soda and vinegar for cleaning drains or, for serious clogs, hydrogen peroxide (from the chemist) and a plunger. • For hand dishwashing, use a plain soap (like cheap bar soaps) or non-phosphate “green” dishwashing liquids. A slice of fresh lemon in the rinse water will leave your dishes sparkling. For automatic dishwashers, use equal parts borax and baking soda – you will be amazed how well it works and how much money you will save. • Use a cup of baking soda, white vinegar, or borax instead of laundry detergent. • If you really have to use a bleach, use the sodium hexametaphosphate- based kind, not chlorine. • Instead of adhesives, try to use nails, screws and bolts. • You don’t need expensive chemical sprays to dust – a damp rag cleans just as well. • Never use optical brighteners to wash your clothes – they disrupt the ecosystems in the rivers because they cannot be broken down. • Wash the car with a few buckets of water rather than the hose. • Don’t use the hose to sweep the driveway or patio – a broom will do the job just as well. House maintenance and decorating • Use a mask, and keep children and pets away from where you are sanding or stripping paint. • Use water-based paints and avoid solvents (turpentine, lacquer thinners, etc) • Look for these safer alternatives on the label – borax, beeswax, boric salt, chalk, milk casein, and titanium dioxide. • Use water-based strippers – they do take longer, but are much safer. They are also safer than sanding, scraping, or burning paint, which create dangerous fumes and dust. • Wear protective clothing and a dust mask while doing renovations, and keep children away from the area. • Avoid chipboard and MDF (medium density fibreboard). They have a high formaldehyde content which leaks out of the board over time. This is a recognised carcinogen (cancer-causing) which also irritates the lungs, throat and eyes. Water • Although most tap water is safe to drink, certain contaminants (such as chlorine, heavy metals, etc.) can still be found in it – so try to filter the water you drink and cook with. Tea and coffee will taste much better too. • Replace taps with ones that use aerators – this will cut down your water usage. • Fit lo-flush or dual flush fittings to the toilet. • Use short bursts of water from the tap when brushing your teeth. • Put a water-filled plastic tub in your toilet cistern – this will save many litres of water with every flush. • If you have sufficient pressure, then fit a lo-flow showerhead. • Avoid products that colour your toilet water. The dye is hard to remove when the water is re-processed. • Leaving the window open, and possibly some baking soda on a saucer will remove most odours. Some aromatherapy oil is also nice. This is often cheaper and more pleasant than chemical air fresheners. • For more advice on Green living, go to www.izwa.org.za as a source for more free Zero Waste publications. |
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