Have you ever considered your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the concept of a healthy home might be new to a few of us, it is steadily getting 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 cleaning products. Below is a list of 5 methods to assist you in developing a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some unknown truths about the air inside many of today’s houses:
Indoor air pollutant levels might be 2 to 5 times higher than the pollutant levels outdoors.
Indoor air pollutant is among the top environmental issues today.
Australians spend approximately 90% of their time inside.
Indoor air contaminants such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the ability to create asthmatic and allergies.
Listed below are a few methods to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Purifier. You can also set up exhaust fans in bathrooms to help get rid of wetness and chemicals from your home.
Update the air filters on your heating system with the pleated filters that capture smaller sized particles. Change the filters routinely as recommended by the manufacturer’s guidelines.
You can also use indoor houseplants to help in purifying your home’s air. For example, 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 might trigger watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes, nose and throat, queasiness, coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, skin rashes, and allergies. 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 moist fabric.
Dust your wood, tile, linoleum, and laminate flooring routinely with a dust mop or a vacuum made for hard flooring.
Vacuum carpets, carpets, and upholstered furniture routinely. Consider buying a vacuum with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter is capable of removing 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 direct exposure of dust when you change a bag.
Enclose pillows, mattresses, and box springs in an airtight, dust-proof cover.
Dust/clean ceiling fans routinely to make sure they are not launching dust in the air whenever you run them.
Change dust-collecting blinds and long drapes with window shades or washable curtains.
3. Use Natural and Non-Toxic Cleaning Products:
One way to assure that the fragrances in your home are clean and fresh is to prevent using harsh cleaning products, which can produce fumes that might remain for days. Try using natural active ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, club soda, and lemon juice.
For example, 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 little list of eco-friendly products available on the marketplace today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothing
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Couches, 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 really low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow odor
Try using any of the above tips to create a healthy home environment. Although the concept of a healthy home is reasonably new to many, there are numerous resources readily available including books, articles, and websites, where you can find additional info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Hillsdale, Pagewood, Matraville, Maroubra, Banksmeadow, Daceyville, Kingsford, Botany, Eastlakes, Malabar and Eastgardens, call us now!
Perchloroethylene, better referred to as 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 efficiency, the use of this chemical has been connected to a variety of health side effects and has recently come under heavy public scrutiny. With heavy regulation from relevant agencies, professional dry cleaners are seeking the use of a more secure chemical– liquid co2– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are offering the option of affordable & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that reduces the energy-burning, waste producing processes that the professionals use.
The first step to green dry cleaning is replacing hazardous 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 postures a threat to our health. Perc is a central nervous system depressant. Direct exposure to it can take place in the workplace or in the environment when it is released into air, water, land, or groundwater. It can also take place when people use products consisting of perc, spend time in dry cleaning facilities that use perc, live above or adjacent to these dry cleaning facilities, or bring dry cleaned garments into their home before they are appropriately aired out. Short-term contact can trigger lightheadedness, headaches, queasiness, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term direct exposure presents greater dangers, including liver and kidney damage and cancer.
Liquid carbon dioxide
Liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) appears to be 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, direct exposure to co2 has no health side 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 really pricey, therefore a greater price is passed on to the consumer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being said, green dry cleanind is best accomplished if you do not dry clean at all or limit 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 big 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 using perc (it is still allowed in many states), these compounds are dangerous. At-home dry cleaning includes no greater than a cleaning cloth and your clothes dryer. There are no hazardous chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc is the most effective dry cleaning solvent, the use of natural cleaning products and at-home dry cleaning can only be beneficial to our health and our environment.
Nobody would argue that there’s a growing consciousness about the effect that we, as people, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the methods we can reduce our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that conventional cleaning products and techniques have on our health and on the environment. Although chlorofluorocarbons have long been recognized as contributing to the depletion of the earth’s ozone layer, and have been largely eliminated from consumer products, traditional cleaning products continue to have a harmful impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products entering the market.
Conventional Cleaning Products
Most conventional cleaning products contain a variety of potentially hazardous chemicals, in part because they are largely uncontrolled and in part because there are few labeling requirements. For example, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a primary element of many fertilizers), which can contaminate water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Likewise, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most integrate other organic substances 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 several different cleaning agents at the same time (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) can intensify the products’ impacts on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In reaction to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their adverse impacts on our health and on the health of our planet, green cleaning products are being touted. Some companies that make green products ban certain chemicals, and others make it a point to totally disclose all ingredients on labels. What they don’t tell you, however, is that it’s absolutely possible to have a clean home without using any cleaning products at all. Cleaning without products might 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, among the 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. Using this type of fabric means that you don’t have to use paper towels, which add to the waste that negatively impacts the environment. Moreover, this ultimate fabric is usually guaranteedto last 5 years, making it extremely eco-friendly. Since 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. Basically, you just wet it, wring it, clean your surface, and leave. This ultimate fabric saves time, saves money, and, most importantly, helps save the earth.
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