PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE

This cuts down drastically the amount of dust and dirt brought indoors, which will reduce your cleaning time.

No dogs or cats on the sofa or chairs. Their hair gathers in every nook and cranny of soft furnishings and is a pest to remove.

Eat at a table. Munching on the sofa means crumbs, grease and spills in the living room.

Many stores have their own “green” brands of cleaning products. There are also wellknown names, such as Ecover, which is owned by SC Johnson, the home of Mr Muscle and Toilet Duck.

Eco purists suggest looking at a company’s overall commitment to the environment as well as specific products or ranges.

There are other easy ways to identify how environmentally friendly a product is. The official vegan logo, with a sunflower, means it contains no animal products. The leaping bunny logo means it is cruelty-free and has not been tested on animals.

Other questions to ask are: is the packaging made of recycled materials? Can the bottle, or box, or spray be easily recycled?

Refill shops are a great source of green cleaning products. (They are also a great place to buy white vinegar, bicarbonate of soda and other DIY cleaning ingredients.)

They have giant containers of laundry liquid, washing-up liquid and other supplies. Customers take along their own bottles, jars and sprays and refill them with the products of their choice.

One brand that’s often seen there is Bio-D. This is a family firm, based in Hull, meaning that the products have not been transported to the UK from Europe or further afield. Their products tick pretty much all the green boxes.

Scottish brand Humblestuff is a small-scale alternative. Set up by Marie Savage in 2015, its toilet cleaner, cleaning paste and cleaning liquid are available to buy online. One of Marie’s smartest innovations is to sell the cleaning liquid as a concentrate. One 100ml bottle is enough to fill five 500ml spray bottles.