Spring cleaning with a clear conscience
Fed up with harsh cleansers? It’s only natural, Kathryn Greenaway reports.
It could be argued that spring cleaning is in our DNA. At the first whiff of warm spring air, we kick into frenzied cleaning mode, ridding our surroundings of the grime accumulated over the long winter months.
We scrub, buff and scrape, and nowadays, more of us are considering doing it all with the help of a few simple ingredients bought at the local grocery store or natural-food shop. It’s simpler than you think. Stock your pantry with a few basics and you can clean your entire home without worrying about adverse effects if the family pet happens to lick the floor or the baby crawls up and over everything and then sticks gummy fingers in mouth.
The list is not long: washing soda, borax, vinegar, baking soda, essential oils, vegetable oil-based liquid soaps, spray bottles, shaker jars, cotton rags, natural scrub pads and brushes.
And the recipes are simple. Try this one: Mix hot water (500 ml) with 5 ml of baking soda, 5 ml of lemon juice and two drops of your favourite essential oil and you’ve got a spray-bottle full of air freshener. Easy as pie.
Stephanie Guico fell ill after inhaling the fumes from an aerosol oven cleaner three years ago. It was the last straw for the marketing coordinator at Co-op La Maison Verte in N.D.G.
“The fumes triggered my first sinus infection,” Guico said. “It was horrible. After that, I began reading labels more carefully and realized I couldn’t pronounce the majority of the ingredients in the cleaners I was using. Now my basic spring cleaning ingredients are vinegar, essential oils, baking soda and a good all-purpose cleaning liquid.”
The co-op stocks products by BioVert (produced in Laval), Nature Clean (Markham, Ont.) and personal hygiene and beauty products by Druide (produced in Pointe Claire).
Tenzin Jangchup has made it his business to offer people the all-natural cleaning option.
Jangchup is the owner of Good Karma Cleaning, a Montreal-based housecleaning service that uses only eco-friendly products.
He launched the business 18 months ago and did all the cleaning by himself for one year, but business picked up so quickly, he has hired three more cleaners.
“Our selling point is the fact we use only natural products,” Jangchup said.
“If the option is there for people and the cost is the same, why not? But people are creatures of habit, it can be difficult to introduce change.”
Yes, old habits are hard to break and cleaning with products we’ve grown familiar with through massive marketing campaigns is part of our routine.
“I think the biggest misconception about eco-friendly cleaning is that the products don’t work,” Jangchup said.
“But the products we use work very well, and once you are familiar with the cleaning routine it doesn’t take any longer than your former cleaning routines.”
Grocery stores and hardware stores usually carry some natural products, and natural-food stores also stock good selections of ecofriendly brands. But beware of the green leaf on the logo. It might not mean green at all.
Some companies are jumping on the green bandwagon by simply rebranding old products as new with a change to the packaging or logo and not the ingredients themselves.
Environment Canada lists environmentally friendly products at www.ecologo.org.
La Maison Verte stocks the supplies needed to mix your own cleaning liquids and pastes and also sells pre-packaged, verified, eco-friendly cleaning products.
“We have busy lives,” Guico said. “Not everybody has time to mix their own products.”
When you buy a pre-packaged product at the co-op, you get a 30 per cent discount when you come back for a refill.
Jangchup credits the Internet for helping educate people about safer ways to keep the home clean.
“It’s easier to find information about (cleaning) alternatives – inform yourself,” he said.
Jangchup credits his wife for turning his life in a more eco-friendly direction.
She’s a social worker and has nothing to do with his cleaning business, but she was already a fan of natural cleaning products and an organic-food devotee when they married in 2005 and came to Canada in 2006. He is from India. She is from France.
When Jangchup moved to Quebec, he didn’t speak much French. He was looking for work and saw an ad for a cleaning job.
At first it was just that – a job – but Jangchup soon realized he enjoyed the process.
“I find bringing order to a space is deeply satisfying, almost therapeutic,” he said. “One of the difficult cleaning tasks is tackling the bathtub. The grease can build up. So we sprinkle baking soda and use a liquid soap and it comes out squeaky clean.”
It almost sounds too good to be true.
“I guess one of the mental barriers preventing people from using natural products is that you can cook with most of these ingredients, so people can’t get their heads around the fact that they can be cleaning solutions as well,” Guico said. “But everybody has their tipping point – like me and the oven – so we (at the co-op) meet them at their tipping point.” As does Jangchup. “It just feels right,” he said. For more information: goodkarma ecocleaning.com; cooplamaison verte.com; Naturecleanliving.com; Bio-vert.com; Druide.ca