Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in St Leonards
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the concept of a healthy home might be brand-new to a few of us, it is steadily acquiring popularity with homeowners. A healthy home can include a variety of elements from building products used to build your home to utilizing non-toxic cleaning products. Below is a list of five methods to help you in producing a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some unfamiliar facts about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air pollutant levels might be 2 to five times higher than the pollutant levels outdoors.
Indoor air pollutant is among the leading environmental issues today.
Australians spend approximately 90% of their time inside.
Indoor air pollutants 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 methods to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Purifier. 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 particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s guidelines.
You can also use indoor houseplants to aid 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 trigger watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes, nose and throat, queasiness, 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 wet 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 purchasing a vacuum cleaner 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 larger. In addition, consider utilizing 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 releasing dust in the air every time 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 house are tidy and fresh is to avoid utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can produce fumes that might stick around for days. Try utilizing natural active ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, soda water, 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 environmentally friendly products available on the market today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothing
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 décor 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 suggestions to create a healthy home environment. Although the idea of a healthy home is relatively brand-new to many, there are numerous resources available consisting of books, articles, and websites, where you can find extra info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Crows Nest, Naremburn, Wollstonecraft, Greenwich, Cammeray, Artarmon, Northwood, Northbridge, Waverton, North Sydney and St Leonards, call us now!
All Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Approaches
Perchloroethylene, much 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.” Regardless of its effectiveness, the use of this chemical has been linked 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 much safer chemical– liquid co2– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are offering the option of inexpensive & 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 poses a risk to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. Exposure to it can take place in the office 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 effectively aired out. Short-term contact can trigger dizziness, headaches, queasiness, and irritation 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 importantly, exposure to co2 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 equipment required to use it is really expensive, thus a higher rate is passed on to the consumer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being stated, 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 refreshed. Professional dry cleaning is a big process that utilizes 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 a lot of states), these substances are hazardous. At-home dry cleaning involves no more than a cleaning cloth and your dryer. There are no damaging chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc remains the most efficient dry cleaning solvent, the 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 effect that we, as humans, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the methods we can reduce our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that traditional cleaning products and methods 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 damaging effect on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products entering the marketplace.
Traditional Cleaning Products
Most traditional cleaning products contain a range 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 couple of labeling requirements. For example, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a primary component of many fertilizers), which can infect water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Also, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most integrate other organic substances into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have adverse effects on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of humans 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 intensify the products’ impacts on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In response to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their adverse impacts on our health and on the health of our planet, green cleaning products are being touted. Some companies that make green products ban specific chemicals, and others make it a point to completely reveal 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 might 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 mindful, among 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 do not have to use paper towels, which add to the waste that negatively impacts the environment. Moreover, this ultimate cloth is generally guaranteedto last five years, making it extremely environmentally friendly. Because 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. Essentially, you just damp it, wring it, wipe your surface, and walk away. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most importantly, assists in saving the earth.
Don’t forget that we are based in Crows Nest, Naremburn, Wollstonecraft, Greenwich, Cammeray, Artarmon, Northwood, Northbridge, Waverton, North Sydney and St Leonards