Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Chippendale
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the principle of a healthy home may be brand-new to a few of us, it is gradually gaining popularity with property owners. A healthy home can include a variety of elements from building materials utilized to construct your home to using non-toxic cleansing products. Below is a list of five ways to help you in creating a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some little known facts about the air inside many of today’s houses:
Indoor air pollutant levels may be 2 to five times higher than the pollutant levels outdoors.
Indoor air pollutant is among the leading environmental issues today.
Australians spend up to 90% of their time indoors.
Indoor air toxins such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the capability to create asthmatic and allergic reactions.
Listed below are a few ways to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Purifier. You can also set up exhaust fans in restrooms to help get rid of moisture and chemicals from your home.
Upgrade the air filters on your heater with the pleated filters that capture smaller particles. Change the filters routinely as recommended by the manufacturer’s guidelines.
You can also use indoor houseplants to aid in purifying your home’s air. For instance, Boston Ferns cleanse formaldehyde from the air. According to environmental experts, formaldehyde is a colorless, strong-smelling gas. When present in the air at levels above 0.1 ppm (parts in a million parts of air), it may cause watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes, nose and throat, queasiness, coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, skin rashes, and allergic reactions. Formaldehyde can be found in insulation, particleboard, paper products and many cleaning products.
2.Dust-proof Your Home:
Dust your rooms and knickknacks routinely with a damp cloth.
Dust your hardwood, tile, linoleum, and laminate flooring routinely with a dust mop or a vacuum made for hard flooring.
Vacuum carpets, rugs, and upholstered furniture routinely. Consider purchasing a vacuum with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter is capable of eliminating a minimum of 99.97% of all particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. In addition, consider using a bag-less vacuum to avoid the exposure of dust when you change a bag.
Frame pillows, mattresses, and box springs in an airtight, dust-proof cover.
Dust/clean ceiling fans routinely to make sure they are not releasing dust in the air every time you run them.
Replace dust-collecting blinds and long drapes with window shades or washable curtains.
3. Use Natural and Non-Toxic Cleaning Products:
One way to guarantee that the fragrances in your home are clean and fresh is to avoid using harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that may stick around for days. Try using natural components such as baking soda, vinegar, soda water, and lemon juice.
For instance, to make a natural glass cleaner, mix:
2 teaspoons white vinegarone quart of warm water
Mix ingredients together and pour into spray bottle. Spray on surface and wipe dry.
4. Fill Your Home with Natural and Earth-Friendly Products. Below is a small list of environmentally friendly products available on the marketplace today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothing
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Sofas, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for all ages
Pet products
Soap and laundry cleaning agents
Organic candles, home décor accessories
5. Use Safe, Non-Toxic Interior Paints that have really low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow smell
Try using any of the above recommendations to create a healthy home environment. Although the idea of a healthy home is reasonably brand-new to many, there are numerous resources readily available including books, articles, and websites, where you can find additional information.
If you need environment cleaning services in Haymarket, Redfern, Ultimo, Darlington, Surry Hills, Glebe, Eveleigh, Waterloo, Moore Park, Darlinghurst and Chippendale, call us now!
Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Methods
Perchloroethylene, better called perc, is utilized by 80 percent of dry cleaners in Australia as a solvent to clean clothes that are “dry clean only.” In spite of its effectiveness, using this chemical has been connected to a range of health side effects and has recently come under heavy public scrutiny. With heavy regulation from relevant agencies, professional dry cleaners are looking for the use of a more secure chemical– liquid carbon dioxide– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are offering the choice of affordable & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that cuts down the energy-burning, waste producing procedures that the professionals use.
The first step to green dry cleaning is replacing damaging chemicals with natural cleaning products. Perchloroethylene (perc) is a synthetic chemical that is made from a reaction between ethylene and chlorine. Like many syntheitic chemicals, it positions a threat to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. Direct exposure to it can happen in the work environment or in the environment when it is released into air, water, land, or groundwater. It can also occur when people use products consisting of perc, spend time in dry cleaning centers that use perc, live above or adjacent to these dry cleaning centers, or bring dry cleaned garments into their home before they are appropriately aired out. Short-term contact can cause lightheadedness, headaches, queasiness, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure presents higher threats, including liver and kidney damage and cancer.
Liquid carbon dioxide
Liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) seems the most practical green dry cleaning solvent to replace perchloroethylene. It is cheap, plentiful, naturally occurring and can even be recycled from the industrial wastes from the manufacture of chemicals such as ammonia. Most importantly, exposure to carbon dioxide has no health side effects. The only drawbacks for dry cleansing with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the machinery required to use it is really costly, hence a higher price is passed on to the customer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being stated, green dry cleanind is best achieved if you do not dry clean at all or restrict the use ofprofessional dry cleaning by utilizing at-home dry cleaning kits for garments with smaller spots and stains or that need to be refreshed. Professional dry cleaning is a big process that utilizes a great deal of energy and produces a great deal of waste in the form of powder residue, sludge and wastewater. If the dry cleaner is still using perc (it is still allowed in most states), these compounds are dangerous. At-home dry cleaning involves no more than a cleaning cloth and your clothes dryer. There are no damaging chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc is the most reliable dry cleaning solvent, using natural cleaning products and at-home dry cleaning can only be beneficial to our health and our environment.
Green Cleaning Gets a Boost with the Ultimate Cloth
Nobody would argue that there’s a growing awareness about the impact that we, as people, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the ways we can lessen our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the impact that traditional cleaning products and approaches have on our health and on the environment. Although chlorofluorocarbons have long been acknowledged as contributing to the exhaustion of the earth’s ozone layer, and have been largely removed from customer products, conventional cleaning products continue to have a detrimental effect on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products getting in the marketplace.
Conventional Cleaning Products
A lot of traditional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly damaging chemicals, in part since they are largely unregulated and in part since there are few labeling requirements. For instance, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a primary component of many fertilizers), which can contaminate water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Similarly, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most integrate other organic compounds into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have adverse effects on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of people and wildlife. Our use of a number of different cleaning agents simultaneously (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) can intensify the products’ effects on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In response to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their adverse effects on our health and on the health of our world, green cleaning products are being promoted. Some companies that make green products ban certain chemicals, and others make it a point to completely divulge all ingredients on labels. What they do not tell you, though, is that it’s absolutely possible to have a clean home without using any cleaning products at all. Cleaning without products may take a bit more elbow grease, but water alone will do the trick.
Why Water and a Cloth Works Just as Well
For the environmentally conscious, one of the very best cleaning tools is a cloth – some would say the ultimate cloth – that utilizes mirafiber to produce a streak free, spot free, lint free, and dust free finish. Using this kind of cloth means that you do not have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that negatively affects the environment. Moreover, this ultimate cloth is generally guaranteedto last five years, making it distinctly environmentally friendly. Due to the fact that it’s washable and bleachable, it can be utilized over and over again on virtually any surface, from windows and glass to stainless steel and Corian. Essentially, you just damp it, wring it, wipe your surface, and leave. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most importantly, assists in saving the earth.
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