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Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in McMahons Point

Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the concept of a healthy home may be new to a few of us, it is progressively acquiring popularity with house owners. A healthy home can include a variety of elements from building products utilized to build your home to using non-toxic cleaning products. Below is a list of five ways to assist you in developing a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some little known facts about the air inside many of today’s houses:
Indoor air pollutant levels may be 2 to five times higher than the pollutant levels outdoors.
Indoor air pollutant is one of the top environmental concerns today.
Australians spend approximately 90% of their time inside your home.
Indoor air toxins such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the capability to create asthmatic and allergies.
Listed below are a couple of ways to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Cleanser. You can also install exhaust fans in restrooms to assist remove wetness and chemicals from your home.
Upgrade the air filters on your heating system with the pleated filters that capture smaller particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s instructions.
You can also 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 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, rugs, and upholstered furniture regularly. Consider purchasing a vacuum cleaner 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 exposure of dust when you change a bag.
Encase pillows, mattresses, and box springs in an airtight, dust-proof cover.
Dust/clean ceiling fans regularly 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 using harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that may stick around for days. Try using natural ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, club soda, and lemon juice.
For instance, 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 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 any age
Pet products
Soap and laundry cleaning agents
Organic candles, home décor 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 relatively new to many, there are numerous resources readily available including books, articles, and sites, where you can find extra info.

If you need environment cleaning services in Lavender Bay, North Sydney, Milsons Point, Waverton, Kirribilli, Dawes Point, Millers Point, The Rocks, Wollstonecraft, Kurraba Point and McMahons Point, call us now!

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 wash clothes that are “dry clean only.” In spite of its efficiency, using this chemical has been connected to a series of health adverse effects and has recently come under heavy public scrutiny. With heavy regulation from relevant agencies, professional dry cleaners are seeking the use of a much safer chemical– liquid carbon dioxide– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are providing the option of budget-friendly & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that lowers the energy-burning, waste producing procedures that the professionals use.

The initial 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 poses a hazard to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. Exposure to it can take place 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 properly aired out. Short-term contact can cause lightheadedness, headaches, nausea, and inflammation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure poses greater threats, 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, exposure to carbon dioxide has no health adverse effects. The only drawbacks 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, thus a higher cost is passed on to the consumer.

A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being said, 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 spots and stains or that need to be freshened. 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 using perc (it is still allowed in a lot of states), these substances are dangerous. At-home dry cleaning includes no more 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, 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 human beings, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the ways we can reduce our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that conventional 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 removed from consumer products, conventional cleaning products continue to have a destructive impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products entering the market.

Conventional Cleaning Products

A lot of conventional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly hazardous chemicals, in part since they are largely uncontrolled and in part since there are few labeling requirements. For instance, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a primary component of many fertilizers), which can contaminate water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Similarly, many cleaning products with dyes and fragrances contain phthalates, and most integrate other organic compounds into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have negative results on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of human beings and wildlife. Our use of several different cleaning agents simultaneously (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) 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 negative effects on our health and on the health of our world, green cleaning products are being promoted. Some companies that make green products prohibit specific chemicals, and others make it a point to completely disclose all ingredients on labels. What they don’t tell you, however, is that it’s definitely possible to have a clean home without using 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 Functions Just as Well

For the environmentally mindful, one of 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 kind of cloth means that you don’t have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that adversely affects the environment. Furthermore, this ultimate cloth is normally guaranteedto last five years, making it decidedly environment-friendly. Since it’s washable and bleachable, it can be utilized over and over again on practically any surface, from windows and glass to stainless-steel and Corian. Essentially, you just wet it, wring it, clean your surface, and leave. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most significantly, helps save the earth.

Don’t forget that we are based in Lavender Bay, North Sydney, Milsons Point, Waverton, Kirribilli, Dawes Point, Millers Point, The Rocks, Wollstonecraft, Kurraba Point and McMahons Point