Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Woolwich
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the principle of a healthy home may be new to a few of us, it is gradually gaining popularity with house owners. A healthy home can include a variety of elements from building materials utilized to construct your home to utilizing non-toxic cleansing products. Below is a list of 5 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 toxin levels may be 2 to 5 times higher than the toxin levels outdoors.
Indoor air toxin is one of the top environmental concerns today.
Australians spend approximately 90% of their time indoors.
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 few ways 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.
Update the air filters on your heating system with the pleated filters that capture smaller particles. Change the filters routinely as recommended by the manufacturer’s guidelines.
You can also use indoor houseplants to assist in cleansing your home’s air. For instance, 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 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 routinely with a wet 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 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 direct 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 launching dust in the air every 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 home are clean and fresh is to prevent utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can produce fumes that may remain for days. Try utilizing natural components 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, clothes
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Couches, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for any age
Pet products
Soap and laundry cleaning agents
Organic candles, home decoration 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 recommendations to create a healthy home environment. Although the concept of a healthy home is fairly new to many, there are numerous resources available including books, articles, and websites, where you can find extra info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Longueville, Northwood, Greenwich, Hunters Hill, Birchgrove, Riverview, Wollstonecraft, Balmain, Waverton, Drummoyne and Woolwich, call us now!
100% Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Techniques
Perchloroethylene, much 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 effectiveness, the use of this chemical has been connected to a variety 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 safer chemical– liquid co2– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are providing the choice of cost effective & ecologically safe dry cleaning, that reduces 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 presents a threat to our health. Perc is a main nerve system depressant. Exposure to it can occur 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 centers that use perc, live above or adjacent to these dry cleaning centers, or bring dry cleaned garments into their home before they are effectively 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 higher risks, 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, 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 co2 has no health adverse effects. The only disadvantages for dry cleansing with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the machinery needed to use it is really expensive, therefore a higher rate 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 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 refreshed. Professional dry cleaning is a large process that utilizes 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 utilizing perc (it is still allowed in the majority of states), these compounds are hazardous. 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 remains the most effective 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
Nobody would argue that there’s a growing awareness 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 ways we can lessen our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that standard cleaning products and approaches have on our health and on the environment. Although chlorofluorocarbons have long been acknowledged 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 getting in the market.
Traditional Cleaning Products
The majority of traditional cleaning products contain a range of possibly hazardous chemicals, in part since they are largely unregulated 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 contaminate water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Likewise, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most integrate other natural compounds into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have adverse results on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of humans and wildlife. Our use of a number of different cleaning agents at once (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for instance) 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 adverse impacts on our health and on the health of our world, green cleaning products are being promoted. Some companies that make green products ban specific chemicals, and others make it a point to completely divulge all ingredients on labels. What they don’t tell you, though, is that it’s absolutely 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 Works Just as Well
For the ecologically conscious, among the very 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. Using this type of fabric means that you don’t have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that adversely affects the environment. Additionally, this ultimate fabric is typically guaranteedto last 5 years, making it decidedly environment-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, wipe your surface, and leave. This ultimate fabric saves time, saves money, and, most significantly, assists in saving the earth.
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