5 Ways to create a Healthy Home in Matraville
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the idea of a healthy home might be new to a few of us, it is steadily getting popularity with house owners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building products used to construct your home to using non-toxic cleaning products. Below is a list of five methods to assist you in developing a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some unfamiliar truths about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air contaminant levels might be two to five 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 indoors.
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 couple of methods to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Purifier. You can likewise set up exhaust fans in bathrooms to assist remove wetness and chemicals from your home.
Upgrade 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 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 might trigger 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 regularly with a damp cloth.
Dust your hardwood, 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 getting rid of a minimum of 99.97% of all particles that are 0.3 microns or bigger. 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 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 guarantee that the fragrances in your home are clean and fresh is to avoid using harsh cleaning products, which can produce fumes that might remain for days. Try using 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 market 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 very low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow odor
Try using any of the above recommendations to create a healthy home environment. Although the concept of a healthy home is relatively new to many, there are numerous resources available consisting of books, articles, and sites, where you can find extra info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Hillsdale, Eastgardens, Chifley, Malabar, Maroubra, Banksmeadow, Phillip Bay, Port Botany, Pagewood, Little Bay and Matraville, call us now!
All Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Techniques
Perchloroethylene, better called 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, using this chemical has been connected to a series 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 option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are offering the alternative of affordable & ecologically safe dry cleaning, that reduces the energy-burning, waste producing processes 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 positions a danger to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. Direct exposure to it can occur in the office or in the environment when it is released into air, water, land, or groundwater. It can likewise occur 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 dizziness, headaches, nausea, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure presents higher 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 carbon dioxide has no health side effects. The only downsides for dry cleaning with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the equipment required to use it is very expensive, therefore a greater rate is passed on to the consumer.
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 using at-home dry cleaning kits for garments with smaller spots and stains or that need to be freshened. 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 most states), these substances are harmful. At-home dry cleaning involves no greater than a cleaning cloth and your clothes dryer. There are no harmful chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc remains 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
No one 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 decrease our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that traditional cleaning products and approaches 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 detrimental impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products getting in the market.
Traditional Cleaning Products
Many traditional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly harmful chemicals, in part since they are largely uncontrolled and in part since 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. Likewise, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most incorporate other organic substances 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 once (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) can exacerbate the products’ effects on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In response to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their unfavorable effects on our health and on the health of our planet, green cleaning products are being touted. Some companies that make green products ban particular chemicals, and others make it a point to fully reveal 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 Functions Just as Well
For the ecologically 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 don’t have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that adversely impacts the environment. Additionally, this ultimate cloth is typically guaranteedto last five years, making it decidedly environment-friendly. Since it’s washable and bleachable, it can be used 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 cloth saves time, saves money, and, most importantly, helps save the earth.
Don’t forget that we are based in Hillsdale, Eastgardens, Chifley, Malabar, Maroubra, Banksmeadow, Phillip Bay, Port Botany, Pagewood, Little Bay and Matraville