Eco-friendly cleaning
 

This is another thing we picked up not to long ago. And as with everything else it's kind of for the price and kind of so we're not using harsh chemicals in the house.

We use to use Fantastic, 409, whatever we could get. $5/bottle. All smells horrible. Cleaned... ok.

Then we went straight for the Vinegar. $2-3 for a 1.3 gallon bottle from costco. (i think) And then you cut it 50/50 with water. We've used it a bit, but it's not really a great cleaner. Straight or diluted. For the bathroom, it just doesn't remove grim, unless you add baking soda to the mix, and with it being abrasive, you can actually scrub away stuff. Vinegar is supposed to be a deodorizer, but never had much luck with that. Though our biggest problem was animal smells that has seeped into wood, and we've recently painted over that, so we'll see how that does. I was kinda getting sick of it. The smell i got over for the most part, but it's still pretty nasty.

So, the current thing we're on now, and this is really by accident, is Simple Green (Simple Green). It's $5 for a spray bottle the size of a regular Windex bottle. But, you're not supposed to use it straight. It's concentrated. For Heavy cleaning you dilute it 1 part SG to 10 parts water. Or for light cleaning it's 1:30. I bought it originally for when I was painting car parts, and was told that it was great for remove grease/etc to prep a part before paint. The bottle says you can clean kitchens, bathrooms, etc, so since I had a good amount left after painting, i moved the bottle inside. It's non-toxic, biodegradable. My wife was doing research on it yesterday (while I was cleaning with it, lol) and found some good info. It seems to be an all natural cleaner. No harsh chemicals. This stuff actually smells alright. And the smell dissipates QUICK. No coming back an hour later to the room you cleaned and wondering if the bottle blew up in there.

So, what do you all do?

This is a topic I really want to hear some opinions and experiences on. A lot of traditional cleaners irritate my sinuses a LOT and once the first sneeze comes I sneeze all day, badly, and have a runny nose. Even as a kid I used to walk around the cleaning isle... Besides that I am interested in biodegradable cleaners. I use only biodegradable soaps and shampoos so this is the last big one. Anyways, over the past two summers I spent away I stayed in an extended stay paid for by the government/company and at school someone cleans your bathroom too. So here I am with a girlfriend who's all for normal cleaners trying to get us to use something else - so my first suggestion needs to be good.

What works? What did people do before these chemicals?

I'm far from an expert on this, but we use lots of Method products for cleaning. Their products are mostly naturally derived, biodegradable, most bottles are made of 100% recycled plastic, and some products are manufactured using renewable energy (all according to their site). I'm not sure how environmentally friendly that actually makes them, but I guess its a start. We buy Method products at Target.

While reading SVOboy's latest blog, I found a link to this article. There is some very interesting info in there.

How to Go Green: Cleaning : Planet Green

Well, we're definitely sticking with simple green for a good long while. So far with just half of 1L bottle I cleaned my entire kitchen (all cabinets, behind/under the stove, count tops, etc, etc), all the walls in my dining room (we were sanding/painting) and the bathroom a good number of times. Since it's 1 part Simple Green to 30 parts water, it last forever. Plus we found a Gallon container (~3.5L) of Simple Green Concentrated at Home Depot for $8-9 where the 1L bottle is $5. So we're just reusing the old spray bottle w/ the mixture we want.

Using it straight (and you're not supposed to anyway) the smell is strong... but as mentioned before... we came back from shopping a few hours after i used it, and i could no longer smell it.

I do really love Simple Green. I use their Pro-HD cleaning solution for my parts washer in the garage. It works really well for a water based cleaning agent.

huh, i have a jug of simple green in my shed that i use to clean the siding on my house. once i use up a spray bottle of some window cleaner or something, the simple green in coming inside.

I haven't looked at surface cleaning just yet, but we switched to low phosphate soaps for the dishwasher and washing machine.

Ben is at it again:

Inhabitat’s Green Cleaning 101 | EcoRenovator.org

finally used up a clear spray bottle. my goal is to have one spray bottle for "light" cleaning and one for "medium" cleaning in the house. and one "medium" and one "heavy" (as per label directions) for my shed/workshop. since i have some leftover adhesive mailing labels, I'll throw some of them on. i like the clear spray bottle, i used a sharpie to mark the level to fill with simple green before adding water. i like consistency :thumbup: