Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Marrickville
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the idea of a healthy home might be new to some of us, it is progressively gaining popularity with house owners. A healthy home can include a variety of elements from building materials utilized to build your home to utilizing non-toxic cleansing products. Below is a list of 5 methods to assist you in creating a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some unfamiliar realities about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air contaminant levels might 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 your home.
Indoor air contaminants such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the capability 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 restrooms to assist remove moisture and chemicals from your home.
Update the air filters on your heater with the pleated filters that catch smaller sized particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s directions.
You can also use indoor houseplants to assist 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 cause watery eyes, burning feelings 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 regularly with a moist cloth.
Dust your wood, tile, linoleum, and laminate flooring regularly with a dust mop or a vacuum made for hard flooring.
Vacuum carpets, carpets, and upholstered furniture regularly. Consider purchasing a vacuum with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter can removing 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.
Frame 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 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 ensure that the fragrances in your home are tidy and fresh is to avoid utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that might remain for days. Try utilizing natural ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, soda water, 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
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 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 fairly new to many, there are numerous resources available consisting of books, articles, and sites, where you can find additional information.
If you need environment cleaning services in Sydenham, Dulwich Hill, Tempe, Petersham, Stanmore, Enmore, St Peters, Lewisham, Wolli Creek, Hurlstone Park and Marrickville, call us now!
100% 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 efficiency, making use of this chemical has been connected to a range of health adverse 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 alternative. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are offering the choice of inexpensive & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that reduces the energy-burning, waste producing procedures that the professionals use.
The first step to green dry cleaning is replacing harmful 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 nerve system depressant. Exposure to it can happen in the office 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 properly aired out. Short-term contact can cause lightheadedness, headaches, queasiness, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term direct exposure presents greater risks, 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, abundant, naturally occurring and can even be recycled from the industrial wastes from the manufacture of chemicals such as ammonia. Most significantly, direct exposure to carbon dioxide has no health adverse effects. The only drawbacks for dry cleansing with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the machinery needed to use it is really pricey, hence a greater price is passed on to the consumer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being said, green dry cleanind is best achieved if you do not dry tidy 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 large 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 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 dryer. There are no harmful chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc remains the most efficient 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 consciousness about the impact that we, as human beings, 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 impact that traditional 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, traditional cleaning products continue to have a harmful impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products getting in the marketplace.
Traditional Cleaning Products
The majority of conventional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly harmful chemicals, in part since they are largely uncontrolled and in part since there are few labeling requirements. For example, 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. Similarly, many cleaning products with dyes and fragrances contain phthalates, and most integrate other natural substances into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have unfavorable results on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of human beings and wildlife. Our use of a number of different cleaning agents at the same time (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) can intensify the products’ results on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In reaction 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 prohibit certain chemicals, and others make it a point to completely reveal all ingredients on labels. What they don’t tell you, though, is that it’s definitely possible to have a clean home without utilizing any cleaning products at all. Cleaning without products might 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 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. Utilizing this kind of cloth means that you don’t have to use paper towels, which add to the waste that adversely impacts the environment. Furthermore, this ultimate cloth is typically guaranteedto last 5 years, making it extremely eco-friendly. Because 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. Generally, you just damp it, wring it, wipe your surface, and leave. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most significantly, assists in saving the earth.
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