Green Home Cleaning: How to Clean Your Home Using Items From Your Pantry

The average American family spends about 0 on cleaning products per year. Most of those cleaning products are full of chemicals that are potentially harmful to the earth and people.

Green home cleaning is one way to cut back on the chemicals and adopt a more eco-friendly cleaning method. This can wipe out your cleaning chemicals cost and even help the environment.

But how do you get started with green cleaning? In this article, you’ll learn tips and tricks designed to help you become a more eco-friendly conscious cleaner.

What Is Green Home Cleaning?

While there’s no firm definition for green home cleaning, it typically refers to cleaning your home with products that are good for the environment. It might be staying away from certain chemicals or products that cause damage.

For example, there can be numerous chemicals in regular household all-purpose cleaners. When inhaled, they may damage the lungs or other organs. When they’re flushed down the drain, they may cause even more destruction to land or water.

Choosing to use products that do not contain harmful chemicals keeps you and your family safe and helps you save money in the long run. Also, green cleaning products usually contain natural ingredients that don’t harm the environment.

Green Cleaning Products in Your Home

While natural cleaning products can be very expensive, you can concoct your own products with ingredients likely found in your own pantry! Even if you don’t have the suggested ingredients, they’re cost-effective and it doesn’t take much to make a cleaning solution.

Here are some household items you’re likely to find in your home.

Baking soda

Baking soda is one of the most commonly used household items and one you’re most likely to use. Baking soda acts as an abrasive scrub to remove stubborn stains. When combined with water, you can even use it as a paste, letting it sit for a time, and then removing hard or cooked on debris.

Baking soda is a natural deodorizer, so feel free to sprinkle it liberally on carpets or rugs to neutralize odors.

Vinegar

Vinegar (notable white vinegar) is a wonderful cleaning agent. You can spray vinegar on a variety of surfaces to help remove grime, dirt, and more. It’s also anti-bacterial and anti-fungal, which means it kills some bacterial and fungi.

Vinegar, when combined with baking soda is a powerful combination, creating a bubbling, fizzy substance that dissolves and breaks up tough stains. Use it in your garbage disposal to clean.

Lemon

Lemon is good for more than just sipping in your water. This acidic fruit leaves a wonderful, fresh scent, and is a great way to get rid of odors. Cleaning with lemon juice can be inexpensive and you can store the lemons in the refrigerator.

You can use the lemon rind to clean cutting boards and use the juice as a bleaching agent. When you combine lemon juice with baking soda, it’s a great scrub for tile.

Mixing lemon with olive oil is another way to polish your furniture with a cleaning cloth and keep it dust-free.

Essential Oils

Essential oils might not be a pantry staple, but they’re a great addition to give your homemade cleaning products. Not only do they offer a fresh scent, but some essential oils are powerful enough to kill bacteria and viruses, like tea tree oil, oregano, lavender, and orange.

Digesting essential oils is not recommended, so if you’re using them for scent, you can purchase inexpensive essential oils and add them to your products. One bottle can last you many, many months if used sparingly.

Salt

Salt is similar to baking soda in that it’s an abrasive cleaning agent. You can use salt on pots, pans, and other surfaces, but make sure to stay away from porous countertops like marble. Coarse salt is one of the best types of salt to use for this purpose, especially if you have a bigger mess, but any type of salt should do.

Club Soda

Club soda is best known for removing stains in clothing and carpets, but you have to act fast, almost at the moment of the spill. You can pour the club soda on the stain, blot it up as much as possible, and dry it off.

Club soda also works to get rid of grime and fingerprints on stainless steel appliances, and a light application of club soda with an abrasive cleaner can clean some surfaces if they’re especially covered in grime.

Green Cleaning Supplies

While it’s important to have eco-friendly cleaning products, you can also take a hard look at your cleaning tools as well. Many people use paper towels or toss kitchen sponges, which leads to more trash in the landfills. Getting reusable or eco-friendly cleaning tools helps cut down on what ends up in the landfill.

Start by investing in a few microfiber cloths. Microfiber cloths have thousands of microfibers that catch debris and they can be washed when you’re done cleaning. They can be used on almost any surface and even for dusting.

Reusable spray bottles are a must if you’re going to be making lots of cleaning products. Glass bottles are reusable and tend to last longer than plastic.

Domestic Cleaning Made Green

Green home cleaning doesn’t have to be hard or expensive! With a quick look through your pantry, you can have a clean home to feel proud of without using harmful chemicals and keeping more money in your pocket.

Sometimes you need a little help cleaning! If you’re interested in cleaning services, check out the services we offer and get a quote today!