Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Russell Lea
Have you ever considered your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the concept of a healthy home may be new to a few of us, it is steadily acquiring popularity with house owners. A healthy home can include a variety of elements from building materials utilized to construct your home to using non-toxic cleaning products. Below is a list of five ways to assist you in creating a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some little known realities about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air toxin levels may be 2 to five times higher than the toxin levels outdoors.
Indoor air toxin is among the leading environmental issues today.
Australians spend approximately 90% of their time inside your home.
Indoor air pollutants 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 set up exhaust fans in bathrooms to assist get rid of moisture and chemicals from your home.
Upgrade the air filters on your furnace with the pleated filters that capture smaller sized particles. Change the filters routinely as recommended by the manufacturer’s directions.
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 trigger 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 routinely with a moist fabric.
Dust your hardwood, 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 removing 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.
Enclose 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 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 assure that the fragrances in your house are tidy and fresh is to avoid using harsh cleaning products, which can produce fumes that may stick around for days. Try using natural active ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, club soda, 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 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 all ages
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 odor
Try using any of the above recommendations to create a healthy home environment. Although the idea of a healthy home is relatively new to many, there are numerous resources readily available including books, articles, and sites, where you can find additional info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Rodd Point, Wareemba, Chiswick, Five Dock, Abbotsford, Drummoyne, Henley, Haberfield, Canada Bay, Huntleys Point and Russell Lea, call us now!
Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Methods
Perchloroethylene, better referred to as 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 variety of health side 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 much safer chemical– liquid co2– to provide a green laundry alternative. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are offering the option of budget-friendly & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that cuts down the energy-burning, waste producing procedures that the professionals use.
The primary 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 positions a danger to our health. Perc is a main nerve 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 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 trigger lightheadedness, headaches, nausea, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure poses 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 notably, exposure to co2 has no health side effects. The only drawbacks for dry cleaning with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the equipment needed to use it is really pricey, hence a greater rate is passed on to the customer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being said, green dry cleanind is best attained 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 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 dangerous. At-home dry cleaning involves no greater 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, 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
Nobody would argue that there’s a growing awareness 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 lessen our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that standard 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, traditional cleaning products continue to have a destructive impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products getting in the market.
Traditional Cleaning Products
Many conventional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly hazardous chemicals, in part because they are largely uncontrolled and in part because there are couple of labeling requirements. For instance, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a main component of many fertilizers), which can pollute water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Likewise, many cleaning products with dyes and fragrances contain phthalates, and most integrate other organic substances 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 a number of different cleaning agents at the same time (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) can worsen the products’ impacts on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In response to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their negative impacts on our health and on the health of our planet, green cleaning products are being promoted. Some companies that make green products ban particular chemicals, and others make it a point to totally disclose all ingredients on labels. What they do not tell you, though, is that it’s absolutely 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 Works 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 fabric means that you do not have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that adversely affects the environment. Additionally, this ultimate fabric is normally guaranteedto last five years, making it distinctly eco-friendly. Because 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. Generally, you just damp it, wring it, clean your surface, and walk away. This ultimate fabric saves time, saves money, and, most notably, helps save the earth.
Don’t forget that we are based in Rodd Point, Wareemba, Chiswick, Five Dock, Abbotsford, Drummoyne, Henley, Haberfield, Canada Bay, Huntleys Point and Russell Lea