5 Ways to create a Healthy Home in Erskineville
Have you ever considered your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the concept of a healthy home may be brand-new to some of us, it is gradually acquiring popularity with house owners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building materials used to construct your home to utilizing non-toxic cleansing products. Below is a list of 5 methods to help you in creating 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 2 to 5 times higher than the contaminant levels outdoors.
Indoor air contaminant is one of the top environmental concerns today.
Australians spend up to 90% of their time inside.
Indoor air pollutants such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the ability to create asthmatic and allergic reactions.
Listed below are a few methods to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Cleanser. You can also install exhaust fans in bathrooms to assist get rid of wetness and chemicals from your home.
Update the air filters on your furnace with the pleated filters that capture smaller particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s directions.
You can also use indoor houseplants to aid in cleansing 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 trigger watery eyes, burning feelings 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 regularly with a wet cloth.
Dust your wood, tile, linoleum, and laminate flooring regularly with a dust mop or a vacuum made for hard flooring.
Vacuum carpets, rugs, and upholstered furniture regularly. Consider buying a vacuum cleaner 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 utilizing 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 regularly to make sure they are not releasing dust in the air each 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 ensure that the fragrances in your house are clean and fresh is to avoid utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that may stick around for days. Try utilizing natural active 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 small list of environment-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 any age
Pet products
Soap and laundry detergents
Organic candles, home décor accessories
5. Use Safe, Non-Toxic Interior Paints that have really low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow smell
Try utilizing any of the above ideas to create a healthy home environment. Although the concept of a healthy home is reasonably brand-new to many, there are numerous resources available including books, articles, and sites, where you can find additional info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Newtown, Eveleigh, Darlington, Enmore, Camperdown, St Peters, Alexandria, Stanmore, Redfern, Beaconsfield and Erskineville, call us now!
Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Methods
Perchloroethylene, much better referred to as perc, is used 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 carbon dioxide– to provide a green laundry alternative. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are providing the choice of affordable & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that cuts down the energy-burning, waste producing processes 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 presents a risk to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. 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 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 effectively aired out. Short-term contact can trigger lightheadedness, headaches, nausea, and inflammation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term direct exposure poses greater risks, 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, direct exposure to carbon dioxide has no health side effects. The only downsides for dry cleansing with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the equipment needed to use it is really pricey, thus a higher cost is passed on to the consumer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being stated, 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 spots and stains or that need to be refreshed. Professional dry cleaning is a big process that uses a lot of energy and produces a lot of waste in the form of powder residue, sludge and wastewater. If the dry cleaner is still utilizing perc (it is still allowed in the majority of states), these substances are dangerous. At-home dry cleaning involves no greater than a cleaning cloth and your dryer. There are no damaging chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc remains the most efficient dry cleaning solvent, the 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
Nobody would argue that there’s a growing awareness about the effect that we, as humans, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the methods we can lessen 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 exhaustion of the earth’s ozone layer, and have been largely eliminated from consumer products, conventional cleaning products continue to have a damaging effect on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products entering the marketplace.
Traditional Cleaning Products
A lot of traditional cleaning products contain a range of possibly 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 element of many fertilizers), which can infect water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Also, 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 humans and wildlife. Our use of a number of different cleaning agents simultaneously (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for instance) can worsen 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 touted. Some companies that make green products prohibit certain chemicals, and others make it a point to fully disclose all ingredients on labels. What they do not tell you, though, is that it’s definitely possible to have a clean home without utilizing 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 mindful, among 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. Using this type of cloth means that you do not have to use paper towels, which add to the waste that negatively impacts the environment. Moreover, this ultimate cloth is typically guaranteedto last 5 years, making it extremely environment-friendly. Due to the fact that it’s washable and bleachable, it can be used over and over again on essentially any surface, from windows and glass to stainless-steel and Corian. Basically, you just wet it, wring it, wipe your surface, and leave. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most importantly, helps save the earth.
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