More on going green
So, we’ve made some more changes in the way we’re doing things around the house.
You may know, that our environmental conversion started small, first with a clothesline in the summer months, and then we moved to cloth diapers and a new hot water tank (ok, that latter one was kind of a last minute thing).
The latent environmentalism doesn’t mean we’ve changed how we think or anything — we’re not any more likely to vote Green than we were previously. I believe that we simply consider the future a little more with the little guy around.
So we’ve also switched to phosphate-free dishwasher detergent (trial run, have tried both the Seventh Generation and the President’s Choice brands) — hoping that this sort of thing will become law as it has in Manitoba (I believe) and that prices will fall.
We have also drastically changed the sorts of things we used to clean the house. This is what I use for the majority of our cleaning.
Cleaning Stuff
It’s baking soda, vinegar and liquid dish soap. I find it weirdly satisfying to clean the house with things that I might use in my food — the dish soap excluded of course. And I worry a lot less about using gloves or getting overwhelmed by odors.
It works, so tell a friend.
4 comments Friday 15 Aug 2008 | 24601 | SlantyNet - General
Nothing cleans better then Napalm.
BURN IT ALL! SALT THE EARTH! LEAVE NOTHING BEHIND!!!
….I think I spent too much time with Mr Sun and Mr Rum today….
Oh, and Adam says that he will post about our worm composter soon. Mikko treats the worms like a pet and enjoys feeding them and says goodnight to them every night. Too funny!
You can still buy phosphate based detergents?? Damn, I thought you guys were progressive!
Kate’s been cleaning with vinegar and Bi-carb for years. When we moved to the UK she found it difficult to buy white (cleaning) vinegar. Now we clean with malt vinegar : ) lovely smell…
When we go hiking, we take bi-carb instead of toothpaste so you don’t put any detergents into the ground in sensitive areas. It’s not as satisfying for your teeth, but you feel like you’re doing something good for the environment.
Since being here, I believe I’ve not seen anyone line dry. Coming from the “Sun” country, we were used to it and we still manage to do 90+% of our drying on outdoor lines or indoor clothes hangers. Your clothes last longer too! Word of warning, turn everything in-side-out to minimise fading… maybe you do’nt have that problem though
We also had trouble getting a worm factory here. The worms we have working for us are different to the ones we had in Oz too. I like saying good morning/good evening to our worms too. THey are the ideal pet (just not that much fun to play with!)
BTW Slantywife feed your worms your coffee grounds – it speeds up their eating which suits housholds like us who produce a lot of vegie waste!