Green & Clean

The microwave has become a must have appliance, especially for those who live a fast paced lifestyle.  Nowadays, about 90% of Americans have a microwave and use it at least once a day.  With that in mind, you should think twice before cleaning it with products that could be harmful to your health.

The easiest way to green clean your microwave is to simply fill a microwave safe bowl with 2 cups of water and heat it in the microwave for 5 minutes.  Let it cool for 2 minutes and carefully remove the bowl using a oven mit.  Then all you have to do is wipe it clean with a cloth.

Why this works:
The steam from the heated water loosens all the food particles stuck to the walls of your microwave.

Leave a comment with any other green cleaning tips you would like to share!

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Oven cleaning is one of my least favorite chores.  I always seem to wait until I’ve burnt endless amounts of food in there before i decide to give it a good cleaning.

Before I started green cleaning my home, my first thought was to go out  and purchase a convention oven cleaner.  However, chemical oven cleaner is loaded with toxic ingredients, including ethers, ethylene glycol, lye (sodium and potassium hydroxide), methylene chloride and petroleum distillates. The products are harmful to skin and eyes, and the fumes are very unhealthy.

Here Is How To Green Clean Your Oven:

All You Need Is Baking Soda and Water: Coat the inside of your dirty appliance with a paste made from water and baking soda. Let this mixture stand in your oven overnight. Then put on your gloves and scrub the oven with a brillo pad and wipe clean with a reusable cloth.

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Rust is one of the toughest household stains to clean. Many of us try to remove rust stains with chlorine bleach, however chlorine bleach actually makes rust stains worse. Of course, if you’re a green cleaner like me you avoid using bleach anyway.   So this is one of those times when being considerate of the environment pays off immediately.

Here is what you need to remove rust stains: Salt and lime juice. Yep, that’s it. Already have them in your house? Great, your rust remover is now free. Just sprinkle some salt on the rusty spot and put some of the juice right on top of the salt…but not so much that the salt floats away. You want the mixture to sit right on the rust. Leave it to sit for a few hours and come back with a scrubber and go to work. It won’t take much effort to remove the rust, I promise.

You might also be interested in our other easy green cleaning tips.

Many surfaces in the kitchen and bathrooms can be damaged by the abrasiveness of powder cleanser. However, some of you need something stronger than an all purpose cleaner or vinegar to scrub the stains in your tub, sinks, or showers.

Here is a recipe for DIY Cream Cleanser you can make with items you probably already have in your pantry:

1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup liquid dish detergent ( like Seventh Generation or Method )
1/8 cup – 1/4 cup vinegar

All you have to do is mix the baking soda and dish detergent first, then add the vinegar. You can adjust the baking soda or vinegar amounts until you have the consistency you like working with.

Not only is the cleanser an effective cleaning agent, its an eco-friendly alternative to traditional soft scrub which usually contains bleach and other chemicals that can ruin your indoor air quality and possibly ruin any special surfaces you may have such as marble or brass.

If you shop for your cleaners rather than make them, you’ll notice that cream cleansers are one of the priciest cleaners on the shelves. In the Los Angeles area a 24oz. bottle of soft scrub averages about $5.38. For that same amount of money you can make roughly 100 oz of creamy cleanser.

Hardwood floors are beautiful, hygienic, long lasting and add value to your home. They are easy to vacuum, but don’t do well with wet mopping. Most hardwood floor manufacturers recommend using their cleaning systems, however they are not always the safest way to clean your hardwood floors and they also tend to be a bit pricey.

So how do you restore their natural glow without damaging them?

Vinegar: Whip up a solution of 1/4 cup white vinegar and 30 ounces of warm water. Put in a recycled spray bottle, then spray on a cotton rag or the bottom of your hardwood floor mop.  Then mop your floors, scrubbing away any grime.

You don’t have to cover your furniture in plastic or ban berries from your home. Life gets messy and clothes, furniture, and carpets get stained.

But if you have a few of the key ingredients, such as baking soda, salt, and vinegar in your cupboard, you can prevent a lot of those stains from sticking.

Commercial stain removers can be helpful, but there is no single product on the market that fights all of your stains. And many of those products contain harsh chemical solvents with toxic ingredients that you wouldn’t want on your clothes and skin.

So why not give your grandma’s tried-and-true solutions a try? The best first line of defense is water (cold water is usually the safest). For those tougher stains, the table below offers solutions for 14 of the most common stains.
Solutions for specific stains:

Table from Green Cleaning for Dummies by Elizabeth B. Goldsmith PhD and Betsy Sheldon. Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.

One of the best parts of holiday parties and dinners is the leftovers, but storing them can be a real pain. Who doesn’t have a bunch of mismatched and disorganized Tupperware containers piled up inside a kitchen cupboard?

Resist the urge to break out the Ziploc bags and other throwaway options, which can cost a fortune and aren’t so great for the planet.

These tips from Jodie Watson, president of Supreme Organization, are sure to get even the most troublesome Tupperware cabinets under control.

Step one: Take an inventory of your Tupperware

You probably have too many food storage containers, if you’re like most of the people Watson works with. Pull it all out of your cupboards and onto a surface where you can see everything that you have. Match lids with containers.

Step two: Only keep what is useful and you have room to store

Keep complete sets — containers that have lids that fit. Get rid of stray lids and containers, anything you don’t use, and what you don’t have room to store.

What should you do with the castaways? Search Earth 911’s database to see if there are nearby recycling options. If your Tupperware is made from polypropylene (recycling code #5), then Preserve will recycle it into new products. See if you can drop it off at your local Whole Foods ,or you can just mail it in.

Unsure of what kind of plastic your Tupperware is made of? Here’s a table with product names and types of plastic that might help you figure it out.

Step three: Organize what you’re going to keep by shape and size

Sort by shape first, then by size. Watson prefers square and rectangles because they stack well and use the entire space that is available. Rounds can take up more space than you have, she says. Regardless of what shape you have, stack smaller containers into larger ones that are of the same shape.

When buying new food storage containers, Watson suggests choosing sets because they nest and stack well together. They also sometimes share the same size lids. Choose safe plastics for storing food and beverages, and let food cool before storing. Or use glass containers when you can.

Step four: Store lids with containers they go with

Stack all your square lids together and place them in front of your square containers on the shelf. Do this for rectangle and round containers as well. If you’re storing Tupperware in a drawer, you might want to use a lid organizer and store lids upright. Some people prefer this method for cabinets too.

Step five: Maintain your system

The real key is staying true to whatever system you come up with. Once you have organized your Tupperware, take the few extra seconds to put it away properly, says Watson. Resist the urge to just throw it all in a cabinet or drawer.

If you have a choice between storing your Tupperware in a drawer or a cabinet, she suggests a cabinet or shelf because the temptation is strong to just throw everything into a drawer.

It’s also a good idea to educate your family about your system and label shelves if you have to.