Green Cleaners

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Photo by Fotolia/Ljupco Smokovski
The magic of these minerals is that they neutralize many stains and odors. They are alkaline, cut grease and can even dissolve wax. Baking soda also serves as a mild abrasive.

Green Cleaners

Household recipe books served as homemaking survival guides in the old days. Often passed on from mothers to daughters, these well-thumbed volumes told readers how to make everything from scrambled eggs to laundry-stain remover, bath soap and house paint. Based on herbal lore, the household and personal-care recipes of yesterday mostly relied on natural ingredients for green cleaners found in everyone’s kitchen cupboard, garden or nearby field. Today, they still can provide safe, effective and inexpensive alternatives to the mostly chemical-based products that line our supermarket shelves.

In 1980, I was exposed to a gas leak at work and then, one month later, an insecticide that has since been taken off the market because of its toxicity was used by exterminators on my apartment building. After this one-two punch to my central nervous system, I became supersensitive to environmental chemicals, and began to research the startling extent to which chemicals are used in commercial cleaning and personal products — from hair spray and floor wax to dandelion killers and shower curtains. Many everyday products contain ingredients that cause environmental pollution that damages the ozone layer, disrupts wildlife’s hormones and increases our risks of cancer and central nervous system disorders.

  • Published on Apr 1, 2004
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