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Green cleaners

Sustainable living  ›  Green cleaners

Save money, protect your family and the environment by using safe, simple ingredients to clean your home.

Many commercial cleaning products use ingredients that can be harmful to people and the environment. Fortunately, there are less-toxic products—green cleaners that can protect your family and the environment. You can also save money by using some simple, safe ingredients to make your own non-toxic cleaners.

Green cleaning options

Check out these cleaning recipes and tips to help you create a safer home:

• Ingredients to use in making less-toxic cleaners.
• General cleaners: recipes for all-purpose cleaners, glass cleaner, disinfectants and hand cleaners.
• Laundry: soap, fabric softeners, deodorizers, bleaches, stain removers and moth repellants.
• Bathroom: tub, tile and toilet cleaners.
• Floor and carpets: carpet cleaners and deodorizers, stain removers, floor cleaners and heel mark remover.
• Kitchen: dish cleaners, drain and disposal cleaners, deodorizers, oven cleaners and polishes.
• Living room: furniture polish, wood and leather cleaners.
• Other less-toxic household tips: control indoor pests, clean driveways and sidewalks, light charcoal, remove rust, dry out damp areas and clean walls. Less toxic glues, paint and paint strippers.
• Shopping tips: purchasing less toxic products at the store.

Hazardless Home Handbook

This guide provides information on common hazardous ingredients, potential hazards, responsible use and storage, proper waste management and alternatives for most common hazardous household products. A reference section and a glossary are included.

Some disposal options recommended in this handbook may not be readily available in your area. Building and operating permanent household hazardous waste collection and storage facilities or holding periodic household hazardous waste collection events are expensive and relatively recent developments in Oregon. If your county has yet to sponsor a household hazardous waste collection, consider encouraging your local city or county solid waste department to develop this new, safer and environmentally sound disposal option for your area.

The alternative products listed are often safer for your health and the environment. However, keep in mind that some may still present hazards if not used properly.
Download the hazardless home handbook below

Why "go green"?

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are six attributes of green cleaners to consider:

Skin irritation:

Some ready-to-use cleaning products may contain chemicals that will cause redness or swelling of skin.

Air Pollution Potential:

Products may contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which may escape to the atmosphere and react to form smog. Smog and other atmospheric pollutants have been shown to cause irritation of the eyes, nose, throat, lungs, and to cause asthma attacks. Many state and local authorities have restrictions on the use of VOCs.

Fragrances:

This attribute does not refer to natural odors that are associated with cleaning agents (e.g., a lemon odor in a citrus-based cleaner); rather, it refers to fragrances that are added to improve odor or mask an offensive odor. Added fragrances have little cleaning value, but they provide aesthetic benefits important to many users. On the other hand, a basic principle of pollution prevention is to avoid unnecessary additives.

Dyes:

This attribute refers to dyes that have been added to a formulation to enhance or change the color of the product. While the addition of these dyes contributes little to the cleaning value of the product, it may be important for safety reasons, such as differentiating among formulations. Again, a basic principle of pollution prevention is to avoid unnecessary additives.

Reduced/Recyclable Packaging:

Packaging is a large component of municipal solid waste landfills. A product's packaging can account for a significant portion of the product's contribution to municipal solid waste. EPA's recommended approach to managing solid waste is, first, reduce packaging of products and, second, recycle packaging materials. Paper packaging should be consistent with applicable recovered materials recommendations set forth in the Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines.

Minimizes Exposure to Concentrates:

Although packaging a product in concentrated form may result in reduced packaging, it raises the potential that the end users of the product will be exposed to the concentrate, which may place the end user at greater health risk than exposure to the ready-to-use product.

Files and related materials

Files that are downloadable from this page

• Hazardless home handbook 868K Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published June 1, 2006

Related Internet links

• Washington Toxics Coalition

  (http://www.watoxics.org)

• Oregon DEQ

  (http://www.deq.state.or.us)

• EPA fact sheet: safe substitutes at home

  (http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/catbook/alt.htm)

• NIH Database: Health and Safety of Household Products

  (http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/index.htm)