Our floors are the largest surface area in our homes that require regular cleaning. If we use chemicals, we breathe them in day and night until they dissipate. There is no need to add to our indoor air pollution when we can use simple and handy, homemade cleaning solutions.

How to Clean Wood, Bamboo, and Laminate Floors

It would be so easy to clean every floor of our home with a steam cleaner. No muss, no fuss, nothing but water turned to steam. But regardless of the claims made by the manufacturers, steam cleaners can damage wood, bamboo, and laminate floors.

Laminate floors consist of layers of materials glued together. Any water, but especially steam, will break down the bonds between layers, causing them to buckle and split. Steam can strip the finish that is protecting your hardwood floor. Moisture that seeps into the wood will cause grains to swell and the wood to warp and splinter.

The primary rule for bamboo, laminate, and hardwood floors is the same: do not wet mop–dry mop (though damp mop would be a better descriptive term). After thoroughly sweeping or vacuuming your floor, use a well wrung out sponge or rag mop with plain water, water with a few drops of essential oil, or water with 1/4 cup of vinegar (added to a 2 gallon bucket). Use warm water; it will evaporate faster than cold. Buff the floors dry with a soft cloth or towel.

Perusing the net, you will find other suggestions such as 1/2 cup of lemon juice added to water. However, a manufactures’ site warns against using citrus to clean laminate flooring as it will damage the finish after repeated use.  Many sites, including a manufacturer’s site, suggest using 1/4 cup of dish soap to a bucket of water to clean sealed hardwood floors–without rinsing. But it only stands to reason that, over time, soap residue would accumulate. If you do rinse, you are using more water. Since the object is to clean with the least amount of water possible, this method doesn’t make sense.

One wood laminate manufacturer suggests mixing vinegar and water into a spray bottle. Rather than spraying the liquid on the floor, use it to dampen the bottom of your dust mop.

Another solution, claimed to be even better for wood floors than vinegar, is cleaning with tea. Brew black tea, (1 tea bag per cup of water) and either fill a spray bottle to mist the floor (a small area at a time) then follow with a damp mop, or make enough tea to immerse your mop in a bucket. As before, wring out your mop so it is as dry as possible.

How to Clean Linoleum, Tile, and Stone

Linoleum and tile floors can also be cleaned with vinegar and water. The ratios vary according to preference from 1/4 cup of vinegar to a one-to-one ratio of vinegar to water.  For a really dirty floor, try the following recipe:

• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup baking soda
• 1 tablespoon liquid dish soap (remember to choose a natural soap)
• 2 gallons hot water
• Add a few drops of essential oil, if desired

Rinsing is not required, but if streaking occurs, rinse.

Do not use lemon juice, vinegar or other acids on marble, limestone, or travertine. To wash these floors, use a squirt of liquid soap (such as castile soap or dish soap, not detergent) in your bucket of water and wet mop. Rinse. Too much soap will cause streaking.

These floors may be the best candidates for a steam mop, but first check with the manufacturer to be sure steam mopping does not void your warranty.

All floors of all types are scratched and scarred by dirt. Mats outside and inside each entrance can help limit the amount of dirt on your floors. A shoeless house can make a tremendous difference. Remember, how often you sweep or vacuum and what you use to mop your floors will determine the longevity of your floor’s finish as well as the level of pollution in your home.

Sources:

• 6 Natural Wood Floor Cleaners
• 5 Benefits of Cleaning Wood Floors with Tea
• Natural Floor Cleaning: Easy Greening
• Homemade Floor Cleaner Recipe
• Build Direct

The California state legislature enacted a ban on single-use, plastic bags. Many cities, (several in California, Washington, and Texas) have made it illegal for grocery stores and restaurants to use plastic bags at checkout, but if the bill is signed into law, California would be the first to enact a statewide ban on plastic bags.

Plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to decompose and are causing notorious environmental problems worldwide, from blocking drains that can lead to flooding, to killing animals that become entangled in discarded bags or choke on the plastic. The damage done by plastic bags costs taxpayers millions every year, and considering long term environmental degradation, the cost down the road is staggering.

The senator who sponsored the bill, Alex Padilla, said, “Single-use plastic bags not only litter our beaches, but also our mountains, our deserts, and our rivers, streams and lakes.”

The California Senate voted 22-15 in favor of the bill. It needs to be signed into law by the 30th of September by Governor Jerry Brown, who has yet to identify a position on the measure.

Not only would the bill ban grocery stores from giving out disposable, plastic, grocery bags at checkout, the bill would also provide funds for local plastic bag manufactures to help them retool to make reusable bags.

Despite intense lobbying efforts from plastic bag manufacturers, the tide is turning. It won’t be long before plastic grocery bags are a thing of the past.

Most consumers and environmental experts believe that paper bags are a better option than plastic, though there is some debate on the issue. American Plastic Manufacturing, a company based out of Seattle, states that plastic bags are not made with petroleum; they are made with a byproduct of natural gas refining, that would otherwise be put into the atmosphere. They also state that paper bags require more resources to produce.

While the obvious solution is to bring your own reusable bags, American Plastic Manufacturing also claims that this may not be the smartest environmental choice either. But then again, they sell reusable bags on their website.

If you’re in the mood for some humor in regards to forgetting your reusable bags at the grocery store, check out Canvas Bags.

Sources:

Reuters

abc News

(NaturalPapa – Derek Markham) Dirty laundry happens. And then washing clothes happens, usually quite wastefully, without a thought for the overall impact of this common chore. Whether you’re trying to transition to having a lower environmental footprint, attempting to rely less on the grid, or just want to go greener in the laundry room, there are a variety of simple and low-tech methods for washing clothes in a more sustainable manner.

When my family and I were experimenting with living in a tiny house, we spent six years learning how to do things in a simpler and more sustainable manner, sometimes out of choice, and sometimes out of necessity. And like most families, especially those that use cloth diapers for their baby, washing clothes seemed like a never-ending chore. Going to the laundromat every couple of days wasn’t really optimal for us, except in the middle of winter when it was too cold to wash clothes outside, so without our own washing machine, we had to get a little creative. Some of the ways we dealt with laundry weren’t so much about washing clothes, but about needing to wash clothes less often, and to use less energy and water to do so.

We’ve since moved on into a house with our own washing machine, but many of these eco-friendly laundry tactics have stuck with us over the years.

1. Wear clothes longer between washing: This is kind of a no-brainer, and probably doesn’t apply to socks and underwear (but your mileage may vary), but only washing the clothes that are noticeably dirty or smelly is a great way to cut down on the amount and frequency of laundry that needs to get done. Unless your job leaves your clothes dirty at the end of the day, chances are you can wear pants, shirts, sweaters, skirts, etc., at least twice (if not more) before washing them. Personally, I also try to buy pants in colors that don’t easily show dirt or wear, and I choose to purchase longer-wearing items instead of always going for the bargain clothes. For me, that means that I tend to go for the heavier weight pants, such as those made by Carhartt or another workwear brand, and to buy them in dark colors. Obviously this isn’t optimal if your job has a strict dress code or requires wearing white pants…

2. Wash by hand: We began washing clothes by hand out of necessity, as we didn’t have a washing machine, and while it takes more time and physical energy to get it done, it also had the benefit of making us very aware of how much laundry we were generating each week. There a number of low-tech tools for washing clothes by hand, but we found that a laundry plunger, such as this one from Lehman’s, was effective, affordable, and long-lasting. We used five-gallon plastic buckets (which I was able to get for free from the local college’s dining services) to wash and rinse in, and we were learned that if we started washing the least-dirty clothes first, we were able to wash multiple loads in the same water, and then do the same with the rinse water. After we were finished with one bucket of dirty water, we used it to water trees and to keep our compost sufficiently moist. If you’re looking for another human-powered laundry solution, this pedal-powered version looks intriguing.

3. Use a clothes line: The sun and wind are very effective at drying clothes throughout the year (it even works in the winter, unless we hit long periods of below-freezing temperatures or snow and rain), and when drying clothes outside wasn’t an option, we used clothes racks to dry them inside. We didn’t ever buy or build a clothes wringer, as we lived in a dry sunny region, but that could be an effective method of speeding up the drying process, especially in more humid locations. Depending on the climate where you live, using an outside clothes line may not always be the best choice, but either a homemade or a purpose-built clothes rack can do the trick.

4. Wash clothes while showering: This is an old backpacking and traveling trick which can enable you to get clean clothes while you clean your body. Either step into the shower fully clothed and get them wet under the showerhead, or remove them first and put them in the bottom of the shower with you. If you use a gentle all-purpose soap such as Dr. Bronner’s, there’s no need for a separate laundry soap, and the soap from your body, in combination with the scrubbing action of your feet on your clothes, can effectively wash your clothes in almost the same amount of water that a shower alone uses.

5. Use concentrated and biodegradable laundry soap: When we were washing clothes by hand and using the resulting greywater for plants, we chose to use a brand that was specifically designed for greywater systems (Oasis), but there are certainly other greywater-friendly options on the market. We still always buy a concentrated and eco-friendly laundry soap, even after getting a washing machine. And for those that want to get started with using greywater for the landscape, re-routing your washing machine discharge to a mulched greywater basin can be an appropriate project (check your local regulations, or proceed at your own risk, as many municipalities are very strict about greywater projects).

6. Avoid using chlorine bleach: We’ve managed to do without chlorine bleach for washing clothes for many years, and I believe there isn’t a strong case for using it (again, unless you are required to wear bright white clothes). There are options for avoiding the use of bleach in the laundry, including using non-chlorine laundry whiteners, but we’ve found that the sun is the most effective and eco-friendly bleaching method, and that drying clothes on the line was sufficient for our purposes (although we do live in a very sunny region of the southwest, and your location may not be optimal for that).

7. Only wash full loads: This is another simple tactic that should be second nature to use these days, but isn’t as common as it ought to be. Doing small loads of laundry on the same settings as a full load is just wasteful, and by waiting for a full load to accumulate before washing it, we can optimize our laundry habits. If we’ve only got one item to wash, then washing by hand may be a better choice.

8. Only use cold water: Even after getting a washing machine, I left the hot water supply unhooked, and we’ve only used cold water to wash our clothes for many years now. They get just as clean, and by not having to heat the wash water, our energy consumption (and energy costs) are much lower. In the event that we do use a laundromat (when traveling, for example), we still choose the cold water wash.

9. Use a laundromat’s commercial-sized washing machine: Using a laundromat’s large commercial washing machine may be more efficient in terms of water use, and can let you get away with one big load instead of multiple smaller loads of laundry. Obviously this depends on the age and efficiency of the washing machines at the laundromat, but many times the front-loading washers use a lot less water to get the same job done as the standard top-loaders in many homes.

10. Skip the dryer sheets: Dryer sheets are kind of a mystery to me, as I’m not sure why people still choose to buy and use them. Perhaps it’s a matter of marketing, or perhaps we may believe that unless something comes out of the laundry with a scent on it, it isn’t truly clean, but I feel fortunate to have not bought into that. Not only are dryer sheets an additional item that must be manufactured (and then disposed of), they may actually leave undesirable residues on our clothes, which are then in direct contact with our skin.

11. Purchase a more efficient front-loading washing machine: This item is on my list of essential home upgrades to save up for, and is a relatively simple method for more washing clothes more sustainably. Front-loading washers can get clothes just as clean, but use much less water to do so. And if we choose a model that is also rated higher in energy-efficiency, we can also reduce the amount of electricity we use for laundry.

The weekly chore of washing clothes can be done with a lower environmental impact, whether you own a washing machine or not, and greening our laundry process can be an effective piece of an overall personal sustainability initiative.

(NaturalNews – PF Louis) It’s almost intuitively obvious to most that too much TV viewing is conducive to physical deterioration and not conducive to mental development. But what types of viewing at what ages affects children’s ability to pay attention over amounts of time and assimilate actual learning from experience or studying has been a topic of several studies.

One of those studies even considered background TV as a major distraction. That is leaving the TV on most of the time even when not watching it for a specific purpose while a child is doing homework, or if parents watch a specific TV show while the kids are around doing whatever.

This study has determined that a TV show’s momentary distractions from whatever a child is doing helps promote a poor attention span or a tendency to be easily bored. It’s a sort of “there’s something more important or interesting on the tube” tendency.

The study’s paper was titled “Background television in the homes of American children.”

Background TV is like secondhand cigarette smoke; it pollutes others

The University of Iowa (UI) publication Iowa Now interviewed one of the lead authors of that study, Deborah Linebarger, associate professor in the UI College Education’s Department of Teaching and Learning. Locally, she worked with two UI graduate students in her department and networked with others in different universities.

The other university study contributors were Mathew Lapierre at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and Jessica Piotrowski of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Linebarger and her UI grad student associates conducted lengthy telephone surveys, often close to an hour long, among 1,454 households with children just under one year old to eight years old. Here are some of her comments from the Iowa Now interview:

“We discovered that the average American child was exposed to 232.2 minutes of background television on a given day. Using multiple regression analyses, we determined that younger children, children living in single-parent homes, and African-American children were exposed to significantly more background television than their older, multi-parent, and non-African-American peers.”

Linebarger added, “What was really distressing was the fact that the youngest kids, the ones under 2, were exposed to 5.5 hours of background TV per day.”

By calculating expected active TV watching and adding to the background TV, the researchers found that children two years and younger are exposed to six or seven hours of TV media daily.

And if we examine content of what’s going on with TVs that are simply kept on most of the time, there’s a lot of advertising of bad foods and bad medicine or a lot of bad or silly news, all in short visual clips and in sound bites.

This is how kids and are being programmed, and perhaps you were, or are, too. Moderate active viewing can be interesting, exciting or even occasionally uplifting or informative. Even then, too much is simply debilitating at any age. The younger the child, the more impressionable. This includes video gaming as well, which are often violent and addictive into later years.

It disrupts physical playing and social intercourse even within families. The tube has too much influence, which is why researchers recommend less active TV time and no background TV. It’s an enticing consciousness pollutant, and it can be the model of behavior to greater or lesser extent among children.

Regarding parents’ attitudes about background TV, Linebarger, who has four children of her own, explained: “[P]arents tend to leave the TV on all day even when no one is actively watching it. When I come into my house and no one is there, I like to turn on the TV to keep me company. And it’s easy to forget to turn it off… you get up and leave the room with it still there and on in the background.”

Sources for this article include:
http://now.uiowa.edu
http://now.uiowa.edu
http://psychcentral.com

(NaturalNews – Michael Ravensthorpe) It’s not difficult to understand the appeal of Wi-Fi. This revolutionary technology, which has been commercially available since 1999, eliminates cabling and wiring for computers, reduces cellular usage charges and allows us to connect to the Internet from anywhere with a signal. Despite these benefits, however, studies continue to show that the radiation generated by wireless routers is negatively affecting our health. In fact, the British activist website Stop Smart Meters recently published a list of 34 scientific studies demonstrating the adverse biological effects of Wi-Fi exposure, including studies linking it to headaches, reduced sperm count and oxidative stress.

The latest research into the dangers of Wi-Fi, though, comes from a surprisingly humble source: Five ninth grade female students from Denmark, whose science experiment revealed that wireless radiation is equally as devastating to plants.

Undeniable results

The experiment began when the five students realized that they had difficulty concentrating in school if they slept near their mobile phones the previous night. Intrigued by this phenomenon, the students endeavored to study the effects of cellphone radiation on humans. Unfortunately, their school prevented them from pursuing this experiment due to a lack of resources, so the students decided to test the effects of Wi-Firadiation (comparable in strength to cellphone radiation) on a plant instead.

The girls placed six trays of Lepidium sativum seeds (a garden cress grown commercially throughout Europe) in a room without radiation, and an equal amount in a room next to two Wi-Fi routers. Over a 12-day period, they observed, measured, weighed and photographed the results. Even before the 12th day arrived, however, the end results were obvious: The cress seeds placed near the routers either hadn’t grown or were completely dead, while the seeds placed in the radiation-free room had blossomed into healthy plants.

The experiment earned the five students top honors in a regional science competition. Moreover, according to a teacher at their school, Kim Horsevad, a professor of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden was so impressed with the experiment that he is interested in repeating it in a controlled scientific environment.

You can help reduce your exposure to Wi-Fi radiation by following the advice in this article.

Sources for this article include:
http://www.globalresearch.ca
http://www.safespaceprotection.com
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://science.naturalnews.com

We have become concerned about the outside air we breathe, and legitimately so. With factories, automobiles, heavy machinery, chemtrails, and Fukushima to contend with, we have no shortage of clean air supply problems. But what if our inside air was as bad, or worse, than the pollution outside? It’s a very real question, one that we are about to answer.

The Causes of Sick Building Syndrome and the Increased Dangers

“Indoor air pollution in residences, offices, schools, and other buildings is widely recognized as a serious environmental risk to human health,” explains Michael Hodgson, M.D., M.P.H., of the School of Medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Dr. Hodgson notes that most people in industrialized nations spend more than 90% of their time indoors, that indoor concentrations of pollutants are often substantially higher than those found outdoors, and that small children, the elderly, and the infirm are likely to spend all their time indoors, leading to permanent chronic exposure to low grade toxic factors.

In most cases, problems with a building’s engineering, construction, and ventilation systems are the causes. Studies suggest that symptoms occur 50% more frequently in buildings with mechanical ventilation systems. Among 2,000 office workers in Germany with work related symptoms, there was a 50% higher that average rate of upper respiratory tract infections that were directly traceable to problems with mechanically ventilated buildings. A U.S. study found that 20% of office workers had job-related  SBS (sick building syndrome) symptoms, including a subjective sense of being less productive in their work.

Besides ventilation problems, other sources of indoor toxic pollution include volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) released from particleboard desks, furniture, carpets, glues, paints, office machine toners, and perfumes. All contribute to a complex mixture of very low levels of individual pollutants. Bioaerosols are also indoor contaminants that originate as biological agents from mild spores, allergy producing microbes, mites, or animal dander, and they are distributed through an indoor space by ventilation, heating, or air conditioning systems.

Of buildings classified as sources of SBS, one study showed that 70% have an inadequate flow of fresh outside air. It also found that 50% to 70% of such buildings have poor distribution of air within the occupied space, 60% have poor filtration of outdoor pollutants, 60% have standing water that fosters biological growths, and 20% have malfunctioning humidifiers.

Sick Building Syndrome Symptoms

In the early 1980’s, physicians began using the term sick building syndrome (SBS) to refer to a host of symptoms caused by low-grade toxic environmental conditions found in living, work, or office spaces. SBS symptoms are numerous and include:

• Mucous membrane irritation (eyes, nose, and throat)
• Chest tightness
• Skin complaints (drying, itching, abnormal redness)
• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Lethargy
• Coughing
• Asthma
• Chronic nasal stuffiness
• Temporary weight loss
• Infections
• Emotional irritability

All of these depress the immune system, rendering the individual susceptible to long-term chronic illness. Combat SBS by taking more breaks outdoors, investing in plants that filter the air, and by ensuring you support proper liver function to facilitate easier removal of these indoor toxins. Sources for this article include: Trivieri, Larry. Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 2002. Print.

Gardening has been largely a lost art form with plots drying up and being replaced in favour of lawns, parking lots, and other commercial endeavours. People have decided to completely forego the skill of gardening in favour of completely depending on large scale farming operations to produce their food. The implications of this trend are now starting to be seen, and they could be disastrous. It’s time to shift back to our agrarian roots. It’s time to understand how gardening can save us and the world.

Fresh and Organic Food

When one relies on the conventional food system, it is difficult to find food that is both fresh and organic. Organic food is becoming more mainstream in many parts of the world, but it is still a very small percentage of the overall food that is made available. Fresh is a near impossibility for most, as the elapsed time between harvest and consumer availability is often anywhere between 2-4 weeks.

The only way to help solve this problem is to either produce some of your own food, and/or rely on local organic farmers markets to get your food both fresh and organic. With good food management and preservation skills, this seasonal activity could help feed you and your family for several months, and even up to a year.

Once a person gets a taste of organic and fresh food, they will have little to no desire to go back to the conventional system. Not only that, fresh organic food is at the peak of its nutritional value and can deliver multiplied benefits that could literally save someone’s health.

Known Origin of Food

Another issue with the food on most people’s plates today is that they have no idea where that food originated and what has happened to it from the farmer to the fridge.

Is the food you are eating TRULY organic? What type of soil was it grown in? Where has it been stored, and how has it been transported? How long has it been from harvest to your plate? Has there been anything done to preserve it, and if so, what?

These are all questions that are easily answered when someone decides to grow their own food or puts their faith in a farmer that they personally know and trust, and can visit! Anything outside of these methods leaves the consumer in the dark and creates forced faith.

When one knows the origin of their food, they know its wholesomeness with little question, and that can be a game changer in optimizing one’s health.

Gardening is Therapeutic

Anyone who has spent a short time in a garden will quickly realize how therapeutic it can be to the mind, body, and soul. The fresh smells, sights, and sounds that can be picked up around a garden is something to envy.

Simply being at one with nature and its miracle, along with the act of physically connecting to the soil (also known as grounding), is very healing and can provide a gardener with multiple benefits that can never be obtained from picking up your food from the local supermarket.

Get in a garden, get grounded, and express gratitude. This is a simple process that can help you regain your health.

Gardening Develops Survival Skills

One thing that seems to be lacking in today’s society is survival skills. In the last 30 years, we have been taught survival skills such as clipping coupons, looking for sales, and refrigerating food.

Gardening is a core skill that should never be lost. The ability to produce food is something that should never be taken for granted, as it is a skill that may be required in times of financial hardship and supply disruptions. If one doesn’t know how to garden, either situation could be catastrophic.

Gardening is clearly an activity that could save a family, and many like them, should either scenario occur.

Gardening is Sustainable

Industrial farming practices have placed the burden on a very small percentage of people to produce food for the rest of the world. As a result, engineered seeds, chemicals, pollution, resource and soil depletion, as well as farmer burn out has occured.

There is no need to put that amount of pressure on such a small number of producers, and it can’t be continued. The best case scenario is that production doesn’t fall off, but the world ends up with food that is denatured, toxic, and completely malnourishing. This could take a terrible toll on the world and could spell the end of civilization as we know it.

Gardening is much more sustainable. Even the ability to produce up to 10% of our own food needs could dramatically reduce that burden and create more natural agricultural practices that are working with nature, not against it.

This may be one of the most important acts we can do in our lifetime, to save ourselves and the planet.