Welcome to adulting! Cleaning is now part of everyday life.
We have to clean ourselves, our clothes, our dishes, and our homes — and for each of these mundane tasks, there are countless products filled with ingredient names so long and complicated that we don’t even know what they mean.
Stephanie Moram thought to herself that there has to be a better way to clean our homes and not worry about what we are using. She started thinking about environmentally friendly cleaning and living and grew curious about the products she was using and how they impacted her family's health and environment. Now she has her own website, Good Girl Gone Green, makes her own cleaning products, hosts the Green Junkie podcast, practices zero waste living and researches brands first to make sure they are both sustainable and ethical before purchasing. So she’s definitely one who knows and has worked out some trusty methods we can employ.
An important note before we dive into this: remember that practicing green doesn't mean zero-sum. You don't have to throw out everything in your house to live 'sustainably.' Now that that’s out of the way and if you're interested in sustainable cleaning, here are some tips from Stephanie to get you started!
Invest in items that you can reuse
Replace paper towels and sponges with old t-shirts and Swedish dishcloths. Swedish dishcloths are super absorbent and you can keep reusing them. They're spongy towels made from cellulose and cotton, which means they can be washed, reused and when you're ready to throw them out, they will eventually decompose on their own.
Look for ways to cut back on packaging for products you buy
When buying detergent, think about how it's packaged. Liquid detergent usually comes in heavy plastic containers. That has an environmental impact, from how much space it consumes in a shipping container to how much water is used in the liquid detergent itself.
A suggestion from Moram is to use laundry strips that look like strips of paper packed with concentrated cleaning agents which dissolve in the wash cycle. All you do is rip off a strip and put it in the washing machine. It's less expensive, less packaging and companies are able to transport more of that to people versus one big jug of laundry detergent.
You can also buy other cleaning products like hand washing soap or mirror cleaners in tablet form — to mix with water at home in a reusable bottle.
If you already have big bottles of detergent, you can refill them at stores instead of buying fresh bottles. Think about other home products you can refill as well like shampoo, soap, and other cleaning products.
Read labels and don't fall for buzz words
When companies label their products, with vague terms like "eco-friendly" or "non-toxic" it doesn't mean much. Companies often advertise certain ingredients that aren't in their products without providing much information. Anything with fragrance on its list of ingredients is best avoided. Because companies are not required to disclose what the actual makeup of that fragrance is and a lot of it is mostly chemicals or not plant-derived — unless they’ve used some sort of essential oil. The (EPA) Environmental Protection Agency has this resource to identify which cleaning products are actually environmentally friendly.
Make your own simple formula cleaning products
If you're ready to go from mint green to avocado or even forest green to a new form of green living, you can start making your own products using a few simple recipes. DIY products will even save you a lot of money, by making your own cleaners at home, you're eliminating waste and packaging — and ya wallet will thank you as well!
Ready to
concoct your own cleaning potions?
There’s a motherlode of recipes at NPR — let’s go!
