• To reduce energy consumption, ensure all lights are off before leaving a room and invest in energy-saving bulbs and appliances. Avoid running the dishwasher when it is half full, plugging in the chest freezer when it is empty, not changing air filters, using hot water to wash clothes, and failing to program your thermostat or setting it too high.
• Insulation lowers heat loss during winter and minimizes its entry in the summer. Invest in entry doors made of fiberglass, aluminum or steel as well as filling floor, door and window gaps.
• Utilise renewable energy sources at home such as water, solar, wind and geothermal to reduce your reliance on imported energy and lower your carbon footprint for environmental conservation. Practice recycling materials such as paper, glass or plastic to mitigate waste going to landfills through reduced energy consumption.
• Replace conventional cleaning supplies with eco-friendly products that are non-toxic such as ammonia or bleach to avoid skin reactions. Cut down water consumption by repairing leaking faucets, collecting water while washing fruits/vegetables, using special shower heads that cut usage by up to 50%, etc.
• Choose building materials carefully which minimize pollution and facilitate recyclable

Sixty-two percent of consumers in the U.S. and U.K. are buying eco-friendly products for a healthier life. Living an eco-friendly lifestyle is becoming increasingly popular among many cohorts, and moms are getting on board as much as anyone else. An eco-friendly gift may be just what your mom is hoping for this Mother’s Day.

A Plastic Free Kitchen

The kitchen is a great place to start going eco-friendly and plastic free for so many reasons. Plastic may seem like a convenient tool for packaging food and more, but storing food in plastic containers causes small amounts of plastic to leach into the food, a process which is increased when exposed to heat or when the foods are fatty, salty or acidic. Not to mention the environmental impacts of single use and even reusable plastics. Fortunately, many reusable and eco friendly products exist to replace disposable kitchen plastic. Curating a little gift basket of eco-friendly kitchen items could be the perfect gift for a mom who loves to cook. Include items such as cloth grocery bags, beeswax food wraps, silicone ziplocs and a reusable mug or cold cup for on the go.

Green Luxury

So many mothers love receiving soothing self care products to thank them for all the hard work they do as moms. But many of our favorite luxury products include ingredients that can have adverse health and environmental effects. Paraffin based candles, according to researchers at South Carolina State University, will pollute indoor air with several toxic chemicals that can lead to respiratory problems. Beeswax and soy candles, however, do not contain the same chemicals, and can be burned safely without risk of health problems. Make a quick and easy sugar scrub in a reusable glass jar, and combine it with a book and a safe-to-burn and eco-friendly soy candle for a mom who’d like to put her feet up and read a good book more often.  

Sweet and Simple

Some of our mother’s are difficult to buy gifts for, but there’s almost nothing a mom appreciates more than a heartfelt and handwritten note from their child on Mother’s Day. Many companies now make plantable greeting cards made from recycled paper materials. Plant seeds are inserted directly into the paper so that once the note has been thoroughly appreciate, your loved one can plan it in their garden. The paper decomposes and a flower or vegetable grows in its place. Along with a sweet note, you can personalize a plantable card with a favorite fair trade chocolate bar or two, a potted plant, or maybe even an e-gift card to save paper and avoid buying something she might not use.  

Mothers work hard for their families every day, whether their children are small or all grown up. Make sure to show how much you appreciate her this Mother’s Day with a beautiful gift that protects both her health, and the earth that her children and grandchildren will inherit from her.  

 

contributed by Sally Preston

The more we learn about the planet and the environment, the clearer it becomes that our actions are having a negative effect on the world’s health and the health of humanity.

It’s not just the overuse of fossil fuels and other less desirable sources of energy, there are many everyday things we do that are causing damage without us even realizing it.

One of those things happens to be the way in which we keep our homes clean. It’s unsettling to think that our efforts towards personal cleanliness could have the opposite effect, but it’s true.

We take it for granted that we should just go to the store, buy popular cleaning products and use them in our homes, but when we do that we don’t really know what toxins we’re releasing.

The practice of green cleaning, is using eco-friendly, chemical free products in the place of the normal cleaning products you would use.

It might sound like more work, but it’s not actually as big of an overhaul as you might think. Here’s 5 reasons why you should try it:

1.    It’s Cost Effective

If you switch to green cleaning, you will be making most of your own cleaning products and potentially even some of your own cleaning utensils.

A lot of the stuff that you will need to make these products you will have in your house anyway, so it will really be cutting down the costs

Consider some of the cleaning products that you can make and what ingredients that you are going to need for it. You may have heard of us? MamaSuds? 

Take this list for example. While not everything listed here is entirely chemical free, there are a few things here that are pretty common to the various different recipes that are.

You’ve got white vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice and table salt. All things that you could probably find in your kitchen right now if you look.

Think about how much you actually spend on cleaning products, and then consider that you can almost cut all of that out of your expenses if you start making your own.

It’s a pretty worthwhile change.

2.    It Detoxifies Your Home

So many people are living in a toxic environment without even realizing it. They pump all of these chemicals into the air, unaware of the damage they could be doing to their health.

A lot of store-bought cleaning products, in particular antibacterial sprays and fabric softeners contain quaternary ammonium compounds.

This stuff can contribute to people getting asthma and it’s an especially dangerous environment for children.

It’s not just your lungs you need to worry about though, the spray cans that you use can often contain volatile organic compounds too, which are dangerous in many ways.

They can cause long term damage to your kidneys, your liver and even your central nervous system and leave you susceptible to a number of illnesses.

Cutting out those products and just using ones that you’ve made yourself can keep the air nice and clean.

3.    It Helps the Environment

This is probably the main reason why so many people want to switch to green cleaning and it’s definitely one of the biggest incentives.

All of those chemicals we discussed earlier? They’re just as bad for the planet as they are for your health, but the problems run deeper than that.

Think about the packaging of all these products. Plastic bottles and aluminium cans mainly, that stuff isn’t eco-friendly either.

Of course we are making an effort to recycle, but our oceans are full of plastic that people have thrown away and it’s a problem that’s getting bigger and bigger.

Do the recycling in your own home. When you make your own products, you can use the same bottles over and over.

You can minimize your ozone depletion and do you own part towards preventing the negative effects of climate change.

Of course, it’s not entirely up to individuals to stop global warming, but if everybody switched to green cleaning it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

4.    You Won’t Contaminate the Water Supply

Ammonia, phosphorous, petroleum, these are some of the chemicals that you’re using when you clean with store-bought products.

And they are also some of the worst chemicals for our water supply. That’s where some of this stuff ends up.

You use a rag or a sponge to clean and then you wring it out over the sink. Down the drain and into the water it goes.

If you use it to clean the toilet or the shower then your going to end up flushing it or washing it down the drain there too.

It will end up in the lakes and the rivers where it can hurt the wildlife and also can end up back in your drinking water.

That’s a scary thing to think about but you won’t be contributing to it if you switch to green cleaning.

Cleaning your bathroom is never going to be a fun job so the thought of having to overhaul your method is probably annoying, but it’s worth the effort.

Take a look a this guide from Complete Home Spa on how to clean your shower head, it would be a good place to start with.

5.    You Know Your Ingredients

It’s hard to know what exactly is in the products that you’ve been using. There could be a lot of chemicals in there that you’re unaware of.

Despite the ingredients list that you see on the back of the packaging, there’s no way of being certain what’s in there.

Sometimes there’s less than desirable chemicals hiding behind ambiguous names. You could see a word that you don’t recognize and it’s actually something you wouldn’t want in your home.

But you are entirely in control of the ingredients when you make the products yourself. You know exactly what’s in there.

And if there’s a particular ingredient that you don’t want for whatever reason, it’s as simple as picking an alternative.

You have way more control and that’s something that you should want considering it’s your home and your family.

Conclusion

And there’s many other reasons to switch too. Green cleaning is the healthier, safer option and it would benefit the planet in a big way if more people were putting it into practice.

Sometimes it can be hard to find the time that you need to give your home a good, thorough cleaning.

It can be a slow, sometimes tedious process and we often like to resort to the easiest methods possible to get it done as quickly as possible.

It’s hard to fault anyone for doing this, but the problem with the easiest route is that it does tend to be the least healthy one.

It’s a lot more convenient to tackle your house using all of the common store-bought cleaning products. And that stuff is packed with chemicals and ambiguous ingredients.

And the same applies to washing your clothes, cleaning dishes and spraying scented substances to enhance the aroma of your house.

You never know what kind of potentially harmful material you are releasing into the air when you clean like that. It’s detrimental to your health and the environment.

Green cleaning is the way to go. And with the right blends of essential oils, you can put together your own cleaning products that are way more healthy.

Here’s five essential oils that are great for green cleaning:

1.    Lavender

People have been using lavender for a lot of different reasons for many, many years now. It’s one of the most popular essential oils.

It’s good for your skin and hair, and it’s also good for fighting against nausea as well as things like the common cold.

It works against these because it’s antibacterial and antiviral. This makes it a great choice for cleaning your bathroom or your kitchen.

You want to use it in places where bacteria is prone to build up and also where people eat. If you mix it in a spray bottle with water and white vinegar it makes a great cleaning solution.

It’s also useful as an insect repellent as well as an air freshener that you can spray around your house.

2.    Peppermint

Much like lavender, peppermint is a popular way to deal with headaches and nausea, but many people don’t realize that it’s also a powerful disinfectant.

It makes for a great surface cleaner. If you mix this with some vinegar and water in a spray bottle you can use it to clean countertops.

You’ve probably noticed by this stage that vinegar, white vinegar specifically is something that you will need to have for a lot of these blends.

I know that the smell of vinegar isn’t necessarily popular but it’s useful in cleaning solutions and the oils will usually mask the smell anyway.

You can also use this particular mixture to clean the floors too. If you mix it with water in your mop bucket it should do the trick.

3.    Lemon

Lemon is a terrific oil for cleaning around the house because it’s got antibacterial properties but is also a low pH.

It won’t do any damage to your surfaces but is still effective in killing bacteria and disinfecting things.

Lemon is actually something that you could use to clean all of your appliances, and also ceiling fans and trash cans.

You could clean the microwave with it by just microwaving a cup filled with water and lemon oil and then wiping down the inside of the machine.

And if you want to treat the dishwasher with it, mix distilled vinegar with a few drops of lemon oil and place it in an empty dishwasher.

These are notoriously hard to clean but lemon oil gets the job done with minimal hassle.

4.    Eucalyptus

This is yet another oil that has antifungal, antiviral and antibacterial properties so you can use it in a lot of the ways that you can the others we discussed.

But it’s also very good at getting rid of grease and grime. Areas like the oven top, the kitchen sink and the microwave are places where this could be a problem.

Mix eucalyptus with water and, you guessed it, white vinegar in a spray bottle and then use that on these surfaces to get rid of all that grease.

It’s a good way to remove adhesive too so if there is any sticky residue stuck to countertops or windows then the eucalyptus mix will deal with that.

And on top of all that it’s good for keeping away pests and dust mites.

5.    Tea Tree

We can sing the praises of tea tree oil all day. It doesn’t smell particularly strong, it’s minimally invasive in terms of leaving stains or causing damage and there’s many uses.

You can use it to put together a multi-purpose, disinfectant cleaning spray which you can use on pretty much any surface.

And it makes for a very strong bathroom scrub because it’s a natural mold fighter. So it would also be great for cleaning the kitchen sink too.

Because it’s a disinfectant, you could put it to good use cleaning things like yoga mats or other pieces of exercise equipment too.

Conclusion

Put the days of letting all of those nasty fumes pollute your home and your body behind you. Give green cleaning a try, you won’t regret it.

If you want to find out more about green cleaning and how to implement it into your routine, check out this article from Groom & Style.

• Reduce food waste by creating less, shopping wisely and storing food properly.
• Placing food in the garbage can leads to methane gas emissions which may be captured and reused in some states.
• Garbage disposals send food scraps through miles of pipes and eventually to a landfill, using more water than a trash can.
• Composting is another option to reduce food waste and provides an opportunity to reuse composted material.
• Consider local laws when deciding whether to use a garbage disposal or trash can for disposing of food waste.