Mommy Goes Green

It’s hard to believe but on March 20, when the clock struck midnight, spring officially began in the Northern Hemisphere.

I don’t know about you but when spring arrives and the sun comes out – I want to open the windows, get some fresh air and clean like crazy. 

If you weren’t reading Mommy Goes Green last year, now is a great time to get caught up on the 8 week series we did on spring cleaning.  Click on the link for the week and you can find detailed information on cleaning the eco-friendly and non-toxic way. 

WEEK 1 – Green your cleaning products. 

WEEK 2 – Clean the oven, refrigerator, and dishwasher. 

WEEK 3 – Dust EVERYTHING. 

WEEK 4 – Clean your window treatments. 

WEEK 5 – Wash all your windows, inside and out.

WEEK 6 – Touch up scratched walls or old nail holes with non toxic, zero VOC paint. 

WEEK 7 – Test your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. 

WEEK 8 – Replace the air filter in your home.

In week 3, we dusted EVERYTHING!  I admit that I missed a few things.  I still need to vacuum our mattresses and shake out a couple rugs.  And I’m seriously considering getting our air ducts cleaned, I keep reading so many good things about it.  ( anyone had it done?  let me know! )

Moving onto week 4!  The good news is that this week is pretty straightforward.  Cleaning window treatments.  We have a mix of drapes and blinds so it requires a couple different methods:

DRAPES - Try vacuuming your drapes with special attachments included with your vacuum.  You’ll want to make sure you get both the front and back of the drapes, and linings if you have them.  If they still appear dirty, send them to a drycleaners, but not just any drycleaners.  Dry cleaning typically involves heavy chemicals and you don’t want to bring those back to your house so find an environmentally friendly cleaners at www.greenearthcleaning.com.  If you do use a conventional dry cleaner, make sure you air out your drapes ( outside or in the garage ) before bringing them back in the house.

BLINDS – If you have cloth blinds, get your vacuum out and give them a once over.  If they are vinyl, a damp cloth should be sufficient or wood blinds love a good microfiber cloth dusting.

If you want to jump ahead to week 4, check out the entire MGG Guide to Green Spring Cleaning. You can also print a copy to keep it on hand for each week’s task.

Last week, we looked at the cleaning products in our house and replaced them with non toxic, healthier alternatives.  Since then, I found April’s edition of ‘Real Simple’ magazine to have a whole section of DIY cleaning solutions.  I plan to start trying them out and I’ll report back!  On to week 2!

WEEK 2 – Clean your oven, refrigerator and dishwasher.

Oven – Oven cleaner smells like poison and that’s because it is.  If you replace just one cleaner, this might be the one.  As ‘Wired‘ says, when talking about oven cleaner ingredients, “One of the most commonly abused inhalants, butane poses severe health risks. But that’s not a worry here: Huffing fumes from the other ingredients would almost certainly kill you first.”

The good news is that a replacement for oven cleaner is easy and cheap: baking soda.  Sprinkle baking soda all over the oven, spray it with water and let it sit overnight.  Wipe clean the next day.

Refrigerator – There’s nothing like a clean and organized refrigerator.  After you’re done cleaning it, take one more step and move it away from the wall to clean the floor underneath and vacuum the coils ( after unplugging it).  You might be surprised at what you find under there ( in my case, refrigerator magnets, lens from an old pair of sunglasses, an embarrassing amount of dust and crumbs ).  This will improve the efficiency of the refrigerator, saving energy.

Dishwasher – To clean the dishwasher, run it empty with a cup of magic : white vinegar.  Fill up a bowl with white vinegar, set it in the top rack and run the dishwasher.  Mine came out remarkably shiny ( which means I had to admit it wasn’t that sparkling clean to begin with ).  

By the way, when you replace your oven cleaner ( and any other cleaning products ), make sure not to throw them away or dump them down the sink.  Find a hazardous waste recycling event near you to take them to.   Call your local waste disposal company or environmental health department in your city or state to ask when the next one is.

If you want to jump ahead to week 3, check out the entire MGG Guide to Green Spring Cleaning.  You can also print a copy to keep it on hand for each week’s task.

FREE STUFF:   To get your spring cleaning off to a great start, I have 2 copies of the book,  ”Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy, Non-Toxic Cleaning” to giveaway to readers!  You can enter to win in any of the following ways by Sunday, April 12 at 11:59pm PST – the more ways you enter, the better chance you have to win. ( Make sure to use your full name and email address, if asked for it, to make sure we can identify all the ways you’ve entered. Privacy Policy ) 

1.  Become a MGG Fan on Facebook.

2. Tell us your favorite Seventh Generation product and why ( add a comment to the post ).

3.  Start a new thread in the forums or answer an existing question.

4.  Subscribe to the MGG newsletter ( the sign up is located in the middle right of the MGG homepage ).

Contest open to all U.S. and Canadian residents, ages 18+.  We will choose 2 winners, at random, and will notify them by email.

CONGRATS to Stacy from Oregon and Amanda from Minnesota for winning the Naturally Clean books!

Spring cleaning is a great time to start incorporating healthier products and habits into your home’s environment. Instead of overwhelming yourself with all these tasks at one time, try completing one task per week. Each Wednesday, for the next 8 weeks, we’ll review one Green Spring Cleaning tasks for the week.  By May, your home will be cleaner and you can relax, breathing in fresher, cleaner air!

WEEK 1 - Green your cleaning products. 

Replace run of the mill ( laden with chemicals ) cleaning products with non toxic, environmentally friendly cleaning products. Seventh Generation is one of the easiest brands to find, they are sold at Target, natural food stores, many grocery stores and online. Bon Ami is a great replacement for Comet/Ajax and costs the same. You can find Bon Ami at natural food stores or online.

DIY – Old fashioned, do-it-yourself, cleaners are “sweeping into homes“,  especially in this economy as they tend to be less expensive.  Even Martha Stewart recommends DIY from all purpose cleaners to floor cleaners to carpet cleaners.  For glass cleaning, a spray bottle of vinegar and water will do the trick or a bit of olive oil and and a damp rag will polish your furniture. 

In a recent article from the San Francisco Bee, Mrs. Meyer ( of Mrs. Meyer’s household products ), says that tartar, lemon, salt, olive oil, ketchup and even bread have their place in your cleaning arsenal – I’m going to find out how to use them as they are always stocked in my cabinets.  Ashley Chapman, an Ask.Com Organizational Expert, suggests using flour sack towels in place of paper towels – we all know that I’m a paper towel addict so I plan to try that out, too. 

We use a combination of purchased and homemade products and continue to use more homemade solutions as I have time to test them out.  You can expect more cleaning articles and newsletters as I discover more ways to use items in our pantries to clean our house.  Use whatever combination of purchased and homemade that works best for you! 

If you want to jump ahead to week 2, check out the entire MGG Guide to Green Spring Cleaning.  You can also print a copy to keep it on hand for each week’s task.