Tips for Avoiding Environmental Pollutants
How much of your day is spent indoors — inside your own home? If you’re like most Americans, it’s a lot. The EPA estimates we spend about 90 percent of our time indoors, and indoor pollutant levels can run 2 to 5 times higher than what’s outside. Strangely, our concern for the environment doesn’t always extend to the environment we’re breathing in every day, right inside our own homes.
General Considerations
Cleaners, polishes, and pesticides are some of the biggest sources of toxins in a home. If you do bring them in, use and dispose of them exactly as the label instructs. A lot of these products are a mix of unnamed compounds — some contain strong acids (drain cleaners) or bases (oven cleaners), others contain petroleum “grease cutters.” Avoid detergents with mercury, phosphates, or heavy metals like arsenic and zinc — these linger and cause problems both indoors and out.
Unless you’ve already switched to naturally derived, nontoxic products, what’s under your sink is probably toxic, and your skin and lungs absorb it. So here’s an easy rule: the next time you run out of a cleaner, replace it with something safer. Often that’s as simple as white vinegar or baking soda from the grocery store.
Bathroom
- For tile and fixtures, use baking soda dissolved in water on a damp cloth.
- To clean your toilet bowl, use baking soda and vinegar, lemon juice and borax, or even flat cola — pour it in, let it sit an hour, brush, and flush.
- Pour boiling water down your bathroom drain twice a week to prevent clogs, and use a drain strainer to catch hair before it builds up.
- For a clogged drain, reach for a metal snake or plunger before anything chemical.
Kitchen
- Clean your oven with a paste of 3 tablespoons baking soda and 1 cup warm water, worked in gently with steel wool. Use an oven liner or foil to catch spills, and sprinkle salt on spills while the oven’s still warm — once it cools, just scrape and wipe. Borax also cuts grease well.
- Mop floors with 1 cup white vinegar mixed into 2 gallons of water to cut through greasy film. A splash of skim milk in the rinse water adds shine.
Laundry and Furniture
- Whiten clothes with dry bleach, borax, or washing soda instead of chlorine bleach, which gives off fumes that irritate your eyes, nose, throat, and lungs, and can burn skin. Never mix bleach and ammonia — together they create a toxic gas.
- Clean windows with 2 teaspoons vinegar per quart of water, squeegee it off, and dry with a soft cloth or newspaper.
- Club soda works well as a stain remover, as does a mix of equal parts water and vinegar.
- For an upholstery shampoo, whip together 6 tablespoons mild soap flakes, 1 pint boiling water, and 2 teaspoons household ammonia until foamy, then brush only the foam onto soiled areas.
- Polish wood furniture with 1 teaspoon lemon or almond oil dissolved in a pint of baby oil, or clean with oil soap or Castile soap and water.
- For stains: club soda lifts fruit juice, tea, gravy, ketchup, and mud; cold water works immediately on blood; lemon juice handles ink and perspiration; beaten egg whites work on leather.
- Crushed walnut oil can help conceal small nicks and scratches in wood.
Shoe and Metal Polish
- Skip shoe polishes containing trichloroethylene, methylene chloride, or nitrobenzene. Rub shoes with lemon juice and buff with a soft cloth instead.
- For silver, soak it in a quart of boiling water with a teaspoon each of baking soda (or cream of tartar) and salt, plus a piece of aluminum foil, then polish with toothpaste and rinse.
- For copper, rub with lemon juice or vinegar and salt.
- For brass, make a paste from ½ teaspoon salt, ½ cup white vinegar, and enough flour to thicken it. Let it sit 25 minutes to an hour, then wipe clean.
- For aluminum, soak in a quart of boiling water with 2 teaspoons cream of tartar.
Natural Insect Control
- For an effective insect spray, blend 6 crushed garlic cloves, 1 minced onion, 1 tablespoon dried hot pepper, and 1 teaspoon pure soap into 4 quarts of hot water. Let it sit for a day or two, then strain before using.
- For roaches, place bay leaves around cracks and entry points. A dish of equal parts baking soda and powdered sugar, or oatmeal flour and plaster of Paris, or chopped bay leaves and cucumber skins can also help.
- For ants, sprinkle a line of cream of tartar, red chili powder, paprika, or dried peppermint at their point of entry.
- For fleas on pets, brewer’s yeast, garlic tablets, or vitamin B can help, along with regular herbal baths using fennel, rue, or rosemary to repel them naturally.
- Cedar chips, newspaper, or dried lavender work as safer substitutes for mothballs.
If you’d like to know exactly what’s in the air and dust of your own home, I’m happy to talk through testing options and a plan to clean it up.
— Dr. Faith Christensen
Sources: EPA — Indoor Air Quality