While it may get your whites whiter, chlorine bleach is hardly a healthy product to use. Chlorine bleach, also known as sodium hypochlorite, is a highly caustic product that can cause eye, nose, and skin irritation, and can be fatal if swallowed. And, when Chlorine is mixed with other cleaning products, the chemical reaction can be hazardous. Toxic chloramines gases are formed when chlorine is mixed with cleaning products that contain ammonia, and toxic chlorine gases are formed when chlorine is mixed with acids such as those found in most toilet bowl cleaners. Chlorine Bleach is responsible for a variety of environmental issues. When released into waterways, chlorine bleach can create organochlorines (a reproductive, neurological, and immune system toxin and suspected carcinogen) and contaminate drinking water. While most detergents use sodium perborate, another common type of bleach; sodium perborate is also a skin, eye and respiratory irritant and is dangerous if ingested.
The good news is that there are better ways to bleach. There are many common, safe products that you can use for natural whitening and brightening. According to The National Geographic’s Green Guide you can boost your detergent’s cleaning power and remove odours by adding one half cup of baking soda or washing soda (two related minerals) along with your detergent. You can remove stubborn stains by soaking fabrics in water mixed with borax, lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide, or white vinegar. National Geographic suggests that when you are choosing store-bought whiteners, look for products labelled “non-chlorine bleach”. Look for alternatives that contain either hydrogen peroxide or sodium percarbonate (an environmentally-friendly mixture of washing soda and hydrogen peroxide). Choosing natural cleaners with safe ingredients is a healthy choice; healthy for you to use and safe for the environment.
Reducing our waste is one step in reducing our footprint on Mother Earth. Initiatives to reduce, reuse, and recycle have made great strides towards a more sustainable and positive future. And with many communities providing recycling programs, it is easier to participate in effective recycling projects. But our efforts to curb our waste need to be broader than just insuring that the glass, plastic, cardboard, newsprint and paper are sorted and picked up by the recycling truck. There are many more ways to contribute to broad, positive, and sustaining efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
While many laundry detergents promise “safe” and “gentle” cleaning and a “fresh” scent, experts have raised the red flag on many of the ingredients contained in conventional laundry detergents, suspecting them of causing short term health risks and of causing long-term harm. Conventional laundry products contain a range of chemical compounds that can irritate your skin and eyes, trigger allergic reactions or asthma, and damage the environment. While there are a lack of long-term studies on these cleaning compounds, scientists suspect that some of these chemicals cause cancer, while others disrupt the endocrine system and can interfere with human and wildlife reproductive health. Some of the chemical compounds you should avoid in laundry detergents include:
A new crop of fabrics being made from unconventional materials such as bamboo, soy, and hemp are emerging and as awareness grows about cotton’s downsides, these unconventional fabrics are garnering more attention. Fabrics produced from hemp have long captured the eco-minded consumer’s imagination, being cultivated for use in clothing and other products for thousands of years. While hemp requires few, if any, insecticides or herbicides to grow and produces long, strong fibres suitable for clothing and other products, hemp production remains heavily regulated in the U.S. Consequently, most hemp grown for cloth is imported from China and Eastern Europe, and the price for most hemp goods remains relatively high.
As the amount and variety of chemical compounds used for household cleaning continues to grow, so to should our concern for the increasing contamination to our environment. As greater varieties of synthetic industrial and household chemicals are being developed and are being used more frequently, the environment is becoming increasingly contaminated by the pollution these chemicals create. The synthetic chemicals made today do not easily break down into the harmless bits of organic matter that other natural materials do. Instead, they resist decomposition, and once these persistent chemicals are introduced into our air, water, and soil, they remain in the environment for longer periods of time and accumulate in increasingly greater amounts.
With the festivities of Christmas and New Years behind us, it is time to take a little rest, relaxation….and maybe just a little pampering to start the New Year. A warm soak in a hot bath is always a nice way to unwind at the end of a day….not to mention the end of a busy Christmas season. The comfort of a hot soak and a warm plush towel go a long way to sooth the soul and to relax the body and mind.
The start of a new year is a great time for new beginnings. If you have been thinking of going green, make 2010 your year! There are so many great books available on greening your home and your lifestyle; it is definitely worth a trip to your local library to check it out. Also, you can pick up some great tips on the web. Here are a few of the top Green New Year’s resolutions I have found posted for 2010. To green your 2010:
Having family and friends gather for a big Christmas feast is truly a magical occasion. For many, a big turkey with all the fixings is part of a great Christmas celebration! But preparing a Christmas feast, without ending up a frenzied fiend over the stove, requires some planning. And with some early Christmas dinner preparations and a little help from family and friends you can create a magical and relaxing Christmas dinner.
Christmas is a magical time of year that so many look forward to. Visions of snowflakes, presents under the tree, and the joy of family and friends gathered around a beautifully decorated Christmas tree. Planning early for a stress-free Christmas will have you enjoying the holidays and avoiding the stress of pulling it all together. Here are a few tips to help plan a magical, stress-free holiday this year:
On a cold winter’s evening, it is nice to crawl into a nice warm bed at the end of a long day. In colder climates, winter bedding is essential and the cool feeling of cotton just won’t suffice when the temperatures are low! But this winter, flannel is not your only option. Bamboo sheets are ideal for winter bed linens. With natural thermal regulating, the highly breathable bamboo bed sheets that helped to keep you cool in the summer will also help to keep you warm in the winter.