Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Dulwich Hill
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the principle of a healthy home may be new to some of us, it is steadily getting popularity with house owners. A healthy home can include a variety of elements from building products utilized to build your home to utilizing non-toxic cleaning products. Below is a list of 5 ways to help you in producing a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some little known truths about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air contaminant levels may be two to 5 times higher than the contaminant levels outdoors.
Indoor air contaminant is among the top environmental concerns today.
Australians spend approximately 90% of their time inside your home.
Indoor air contaminants such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the ability to create asthmatic and allergic reactions.
Listed below are a few ways to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Cleanser. You can likewise set up exhaust fans in restrooms to help remove moisture and chemicals from your home.
Upgrade the air filters on your heater with the pleated filters that catch smaller sized particles. Change the filters frequently as recommended by the manufacturer’s guidelines.
You can likewise use indoor houseplants to help in purifying your home’s air. For instance, Boston Ferns clean 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, nausea, 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 frequently with a moist fabric.
Dust your hardwood, tile, linoleum, and laminate flooring frequently with a dust mop or a vacuum made for hard flooring.
Vacuum carpets, carpets, and upholstered furniture frequently. Consider purchasing a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter is capable of getting rid of a minimum of 99.97% of all particles that are 0.3 microns or bigger. In addition, consider utilizing 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 frequently to make sure they are not launching dust in the air whenever 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 ensure that the fragrances in your house are tidy and fresh is to avoid utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can produce fumes that may stick around for days. Try utilizing natural ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, soda water, and lemon juice.
For instance, to make a natural glass cleaner, combine:
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 little list of environmentally friendly products available on the market today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothes
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Sofas, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for any age
Pet products
Soap and laundry cleaning agents
Organic candles, home decoration accessories
5. Use Safe, Non-Toxic Interior Paints that have extremely low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow odor
Try utilizing any of the above tips to create a healthy home environment. Although the idea of a healthy home is relatively new to many, there are numerous resources available including books, articles, and sites, where you can find additional information.
If you need environment cleaning services in Lewisham, Hurlstone Park, Petersham, Marrickville, Summer Hill, Stanmore, Canterbury, Ashbury, Ashfield, Sydenham and Dulwich Hill, call us now!
Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Techniques
Perchloroethylene, better referred to as perc, is utilized by 80 percent of dry cleaners in Australia as a solvent to wash clothes that are “dry clean only.” In spite of its efficiency, making use of this chemical has been connected to a series of health negative effects and has recently come under heavy public scrutiny. With heavy regulation from relevant agencies, professional dry cleaners are seeking the use of a safer chemical– liquid co2– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are providing the choice of cost effective & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that lowers the energy-burning, waste producing processes that the professionals use.
The primary 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 poses a threat to our health. Perc is a central nerve system depressant. Direct exposure to it can occur in the workplace or in the environment when it is released into air, water, land, or groundwater. It can likewise take place 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 effectively aired out. Short-term contact can cause dizziness, headaches, nausea, and inflammation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure poses greater hazards, 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, abundant, naturally occurring and can even be recycled from the industrial wastes from the manufacture of chemicals such as ammonia. Most importantly, exposure to co2 has no health negative effects. The only disadvantages for dry cleaning with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the machinery required to use it is extremely pricey, hence a greater cost is passed on to the consumer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being stated, green dry cleanind is best attained if you do not dry tidy at all or restrict the use ofprofessional dry cleaning by using at-home dry cleaning kits for garments with smaller sized spots and stains or that need to be refreshed. Professional dry cleaning is a large process that uses 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 utilizing perc (it is still allowed in many 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 remains the most reliable dry cleaning solvent, making use of 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
No one 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 conventional 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 eliminated from consumer products, conventional cleaning products continue to have a damaging impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products getting in the marketplace.
Conventional Cleaning Products
The majority of traditional cleaning products contain a range of potentially damaging chemicals, in part due to the fact that they are largely uncontrolled and in part due to the fact that there are couple of labeling requirements. For instance, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a primary component of many fertilizers), which can infect water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Likewise, many cleaning products with dyes and fragrances contain phthalates, and most integrate other organic compounds into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have unfavorable results on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of people and wildlife. Our use of several different cleaning agents at the same time (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for instance) can worsen the products’ results on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In response to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their unfavorable results 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 fully reveal all ingredients on labels. What they do not tell you, however, is that it’s absolutely possible to have a clean home without utilizing any cleaning products at all. Cleaning without products may take a bit more effort, 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 uses mirafiber to produce a streak free, spot free, lint free, and dust free finish. Utilizing this kind of fabric means that you do not have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that adversely impacts the environment. Furthermore, this ultimate fabric is generally guaranteedto last 5 years, making it distinctly environmentally friendly. Since it’s washable and bleachable, it can be utilized over and over again on essentially any surface, from windows and glass to stainless-steel and Corian. Essentially, you just wet it, wring it, clean your surface, and walk away. This ultimate fabric saves time, saves money, and, most importantly, helps save the earth.
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