Speed Cleaning (15 page)

Mildew can actually thrive in a mildly acidic environment, so vinegar and other acidic solutions that have been suggested for mildew treatments are not sensible alternatives.

Clorox recommends that no other cleaner—including baking soda—be mixed with bleach except a small amount of detergent as an option.

The active ingredient of environmental consequence in Comet and many other powdered scouring cleansers is a small percentage of chlorine bleach. We recommend its use, but in much smaller amounts than most housecleaners are inclined to use.

If you want to reduce your exposure to bleaching cleansers, consider using chemically resistant gloves, be careful about ventilation, and
rinse the surfaces with cold water. (Steam from hot water may carry the chlorine into the air.)

If you want to use an unbleached scouring powder, try Bon Ami, which is a relatively mild abrasive powder without chlorine or any other type of bleach. Some sources recommend baking soda, but it’s an alkaline substance that can damage vulnerable surfaces itself if left unrinsed. And it often dissolves as it is being scrubbed on surfaces just when you need it most.

As you’ve read, 100 percent cotton napkins and cloth diapers are our first and second choices for spray-and-wipe operations. Our third alternative is paper towels.

The quality of consumer paper towels varies enormously, and we believe it is a false economy to use the bargain brands because you’ll end up using more of them to do the job. We prefer the Bounty Microwave brand. No inks or dyes are used in their manufacture, as is the case with most other pure-white paper towels. In addition, only materials approved by the Food and Drug Administration are voluntarily used in their manufacture. (Paper towels are normally not regulated
by the FDA.) According to their manufacturer, there are no dioxins in this paper product—measured to one part per trillion.

Few, if any, unbleached paper towels are available in grocery stores. Many environmental workers are concerned about the effects on our water supplies of dioxins produced by the bleaching of wood pulp. Bleaches are added to pulp to purify it and make it more absorbent, among other reasons. The bleaches are not the problem. But they can lead to the production of dioxins when they react with certain ingredients of natural wood pulp. It is the dioxins that are the problem. The good news is that the paper industry is developing new technologies, including ones that use oxygenated bleaches so dioxins aren’t produced. Other operating and processing innovations have been or will be introduced so the risk of dioxin release should be greatly diminished or eliminated for this industry.

Clean with reusable cotton cleaning cloths.

Anyone who has used ammonia cannot long remain unaware that ammonia is a powerful irritant to the lungs, eyes, and skin. But from an environmental point of view, sources differ considerably on its use.
Some recommend it as an alternative to traditional strong cleaners like oven cleaners. Others say to minimize its use because it is an irritant. We could find no data on the environmental impact of household levels of ammonia. But it is a compound that occurs spontaneously in nature—especially that part of nature near cat boxes. And it is an eminently biodegradable product.

Used in the amounts we recommend for washing floors, it is hard to conceive of it as an environmental threat. But be careful about pouring it down the toilet! If you installed a dispensing chlorine product in the toilet tank, keep the ammonia entirely away from the toilet.

There aren’t many comparable alternatives for floor cleaning. You might try a solution of ¼ to 1 cup of white vinegar per gallon of water for most types of floor. But test in an inconspicuous spot first, because some types of floor (e.g., marble) do not like to be cleaned with any type of acid—even a mild one like vinegar.

We use the standard formula of Easy Off oven cleaner, but we ask that it be applied the night before without heating the oven, so we don’t have to deal with any fumes. And we use long, heavy industrial gloves
when wiping out the oven. By the way, please ignore well-intentioned but misguided suggestions in some environmental publications to apply oven cleaner when the oven is already warm after cooking (to save energy). If you’ve misjudged arid sprayed an already hot oven, you could be exposed to very harmful fumes. Better to spray a cool oven, close the door, and then heat it—per instructions.

The active ingredient in many oven cleaners is a serious compound: sodium hydroxide (lye). We found no data on environmental harm caused by household concentrations of oven cleaner. However, most formulas are notoriously caustic, which means they can burn and destroy skin tissue. Easy Off is now sold in at least two noncaustic varieties that contain no lye, and Arm & Hammer also has a noncaustic variety. All of these formulas are sold in manual pump-spray containers, not aerosols. They require a heated oven and overnight application. One or more of the formulas are so mild that their label instructions say you don’t even have to wear gloves, but it’s such a messy job that gloves would still seem to be a good idea.

The alternative to oven cleaners most often recommended in publications
⁶
is a bowl of ammonia left overnight in the oven. Add ¼ to ½ cup ammonia in a shallow glass or porcelain (not metal) bowl, plus about the same amount of warm water. Place the bowl in the oven and close the door. The idea is that fumes from the evaporating ammonia
soften the crud in the oven overnight. Make sure the kitchen window is wide open before you lower the oven door the next day, because you will be greeted by obnoxious ammonia fumes. Wet the surfaces with Red Juice or the equivalent before scrubbing, and follow the procedures described in
Chapter 7
for cleaning an oven.

The best way to reduce the amount of oven cleaner used is prevention, of course. Positioning a large baking sheet beneath the item being baked is one of those splendid ideas that one always remembers after the fact. Putting a piece of aluminum foil on top of that same tray is the other great idea.

Most liquid tile cleaners that are designed to remove soap scum and mineral deposits are formulated around some type of acid—typically phosphoric acid.

Phosphoric acid does biodegrade, but unfortunately it biodegrades to form phosphate salts. Phosphates indirectly kill fish and other aquatic life by promoting the growth of algae that use up the available oxygen in rivers and lakes.

Because of the phosphate problem, we have switched our formula for Tile Juice to a neutral tile-cleaning solution that contains no phosphates, is biodegradable, and is nonacidic.

An alternative is white vinegar—another acid, but this time it’s 5 percent acetic acid (the weakest type of acid). If you want to try vinegar, mix ½ cup or so of white vinegar per gallon of water, apply and scrub like Tile Juice, and rinse afterward. The white pad might be better than the tile brush for a thin liquid like vinegar. Some environmentalists suggest a paste of baking soda as an alternative (see
Note 4
). And there are new environmentally oriented product lines
⁷
that use citric acid (plus other ingredients) instead of phosphoric acid in their tile cleaners. Similar products are listed in
The Green Consumer.
⁸

Yet another choice is to stick to traditional powdered cleanser—chlorinated or otherwise—scrubbed with the tile brush. It’s considerably more difficult to manage than a liquid cleaner, but it is not an acidic product.

Prevention is one of the wisest environmental steps you can take in terms of tile cleaning. The buildup from hard water is one reason that tile is difficult to clean, so consider installing a water softener. Or wipe down the shower walls and doors afterward with a quick swipe with a squeegee left in the shower for that purpose. If soap builds up quickly on your shower walls, changing soaps may help. For example, switch from a hard bar soap to a liquid soap or one that is milled with oils instead of fats.

The “lemon” Old English polish we have used for ten years has never caused us breathing difficulties. We find that the manual spray-pump formula works better than the aerosol (they are different formulas). It’s fortunate that the product that works better is also safer environmentally.

There is concern that furniture polishes can cause harm to children who inhale their vapors. Polishes that have a high concentration of low-viscosity (thin) oils can, if inhaled, coat the lungs and seriously interfere with a child’s ability to breathe. This formula of Old English has relatively little oil (less than 10 percent), and the oil is of high viscosity. If it is inhaled, the probability of causing respiratory distress is relatively slight. If drunk, it is usually nontoxic. But needless to say, it and all other furniture polish must be kept away from little ones, and any significant accidental exposure warrants medical advice.

If you prefer to use an oil instead of wax, you might consider plain walnut oil. After all, it came from wood to begin with. (We are absolutely amazed that some environmental publications recommend using mineral oil on wood furniture.) Many aficionados of fine wood furniture
eschew oil in favor of paste wax. You can reduce airborne exposure to the oils in furniture polish by using a paste wax. Kiwi Bois and Goddard’s are two excellent brands.

One of the major issues in terms of environmental impact of household cleaning is the conservation and protection of the drinking supply. In a few years we’ll probably look back in wonder that we used to flush our toilets and water our lawns with drinking water. But for now, our goals are more modest: to use as little water as reasonably possible and not to damage the available sources.

We believe that our
SPEED CLEANING
methods minimize the use of water in several ways: by not using sponges, which require frequent rinsing; by avoiding the use of scouring powder on areas that are difficult to rinse; by training you not to rinse or wipe until the proper time (
Rule 5
); by training you to work from top to bottom, which eliminates needless rewashing and rerinsing (
Rule 3
); and by using a cotton scrub mop (the Sh-Mop) that requires far less water to clean floors.

Environmentally safe cleaning is obviously a complex issue; much more can be learned. If you are interested in reading further, please see one or more of the references at the end of this chapter. One of the most complete presentations of the environmental perspective to date is the
Guide to Hazardous Products Around the Home
by the Household Hazardous Waste Project.

Whatever your choices about cleaning products, remember that THE METHOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PRODUCTS. We can assure you that the Speed Cleaning method we’ve described here works well with a whole range of products whose ultimate selection is up to you.

Resumen de nuestro método de Limpieza Rápida
^*

Nuestro grupo, conocido en inglés como “The Clean Team,” presta servicios de aseo doméstico en San Francisco aproximadamente 15,000 veces al año. Hemos perfeccionado un método de aseo que requiere más o menos la mitad del esfuerzo que la mayoría de las personas usa. Este capítulo describe nuestro método en forma resumida para aquellas personas que limpian sus hogares cada semana o dos veces al mes.

Nuestro método de limpieza es muy eficiente, es decir, elimina el gasto innecesario de esfuerzo, movimiento y tiempo. En cuanto mayor sea la eficiencia con que usted trabaje, menor cansancio sentirá. Y si se le hace difícil encontrar el tiempo necesario para completar sus labores, nuestro método le ayudará a terminar mucho más rápido, aplicando más ingenio y menos esfuerzo.