Any-Mom » Going Green

Going Green

11.18.2008 | Author: OrganizerMom | Posted in Our Bodies, Our Selves

Every few months I resolve to be greener in my approach to household cleaning products. I go out and buy some new non-toxic cleaner that won’t leach chemicals into my house. Most recently I purchased a concentrated cleaner from Shaklee. Just mix it with water and it will clean anything in your home, my Shaklee rep promised. Well, I tried it on everything in my home and, guess what, it didn’t clean a darn thing. Not the grimy windows, not the greasy stove, and certainly not the ring of soap scum in my tub. Anywhere serious cleansing power was needed, Shaklee was not up to the job. So what do I do? Well, I pull out my Windex, my 409, and my Tilex Soap Scum Remover and I get this house clean! But I’m not happy about it; I worry about the chemicals I’m breathing in when I spray out this stuff. I worry about the toxins settling into the ground water or being washed out to sea. And I worry about the accumulation of toxins in my son’s little body and how they will affect his health as he grows older.

But then I think, how bad are these chemicals, really? I mean, if they were that bad, there would be a recall and the offending products would be pulled off the shelf, right? So maybe I don’t really need to worry about it. Except that I do worry about it and my brain feels like it might explode from going round and round on this issue. In order to even sleep at night, I have to focus on the small victories, like the fact that I switched my husband from using bar soap—which left a huge slimy scum trail underneath the soap tray in the bathtub—to a liquid body wash. I had tried for years to convince him to use my body wash but he stubbornly resisted. Finally I bought him some manly Suave Body Wash for Men in a dark blue masculine bottle and he started using it. So thumbs up for me; the huge slimy soap scum trail no longer exists in my tub. And that not only cuts down on chemicals used, it cuts down on the effort and time needed to clean. Win-win all around!

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Do you have any green solutions you’d like to share? Please let us know in the comments!