Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Potts Point
Have you ever considered your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the principle of a healthy home may be new to some of us, it is gradually gaining popularity with homeowners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building products used to build your home to utilizing non-toxic cleansing 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 truths about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air pollutant levels may be 2 to five times higher than the pollutant levels outdoors.
Indoor air pollutant is one of the leading environmental issues 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 allergic reactions.
Listed below are a couple of ways to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Cleanser. You can likewise install exhaust fans in bathrooms to help get rid of moisture and chemicals from your home.
Upgrade the air filters on your furnace with the pleated filters that catch smaller particles. Change the filters routinely as recommended by the manufacturer’s guidelines.
You can likewise use indoor houseplants to aid in cleansing 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 may cause 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 routinely with a moist cloth.
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 purchasing a vacuum with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter can eliminating a minimum of 99.97% of all particles that are 0.3 microns or bigger. 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 routinely to make sure they are not releasing 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 guarantee that the fragrances in your house are clean and fresh is to prevent utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that may linger for days. Try utilizing natural ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, club soda, and lemon juice.
For example, 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 eco-friendly products available on the market today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothes
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Couches, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for any age
Pet products
Soap and laundry detergents
Organic candles, home decoration accessories
5. Use Safe, Non-Toxic Interior Paints that have really low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow odor
Try utilizing any of the above tips to create a healthy home environment. Although the idea of a healthy home is reasonably new to many, there are numerous resources readily available consisting of books, articles, and sites, where you can find extra info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Elizabeth Bay, Woolloomooloo, Rushcutters Bay, Darling Point, Darlinghurst, Edgecliff, Sydney, Paddington, The Rocks, Double Bay and Potts Point, call us now!
All Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Methods
Perchloroethylene, 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 effectiveness, using this chemical has been connected to a series of health negative 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 budget-friendly & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that cuts down the energy-burning, waste producing processes that the professionals use.
The initial 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 positions a hazard to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. Direct exposure to it can occur in the workplace 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 properly aired out. Short-term contact can cause dizziness, headaches, nausea, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term direct exposure presents greater hazards, 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 significantly, direct exposure to carbon dioxide has no health negative effects. The only drawbacks for dry cleansing with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the equipment required to use it is really expensive, therefore a greater price is passed on to the customer.
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 large 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 compounds are hazardous. At-home dry cleaning involves no greater than a cleaning cloth and your clothes dryer. There are no damaging 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
Nobody would argue that there’s a growing consciousness about the impact that we, as people, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the ways we can minimize 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 customer products, conventional cleaning products continue to have a damaging impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products entering the marketplace.
Conventional Cleaning Products
Most conventional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly damaging chemicals, in part due to the fact that they are largely unregulated and in part due to the fact that there are few labeling requirements. For example, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a main element of many fertilizers), which can contaminate water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Also, many cleaning products with dyes and fragrances contain phthalates, and most incorporate other organic substances into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have negative results on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of people and wildlife. Our use of a number of different cleaning agents simultaneously (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 reaction to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their negative effects on our health and on the health of our planet, green cleaning products are being touted. Some companies that make green products prohibit certain chemicals, and others make it a point to completely 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 effort, but water alone will do the trick.
Why Water and a Cloth Functions Just as Well
For the environmentally conscious, 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 type of cloth means that you do not have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that negatively impacts the environment. Furthermore, this ultimate cloth is typically guaranteedto last five years, making it extremely eco-friendly. Due to the fact that 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. Generally, you just damp it, wring it, clean your surface, and leave. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most significantly, helps save the earth.
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