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Vinegar and Baking Soda

Household chemicals. Probably some of the most dangerous things we have around. Have you ever really looked at the labels on some of that stuff? My wife and I have a rule (seems like we have lots of rules, huh?) that relates to food and is making its way into many aspects of our lives. And that rule is we look at the ingredients in our food or in our cleaning supplies or household items such as toothpaste and if we can’t spell it or pronounce it, we try to avoid it.
This especially can apply to cleaning supplies. From window and countertop cleaners to scrubbing cleansers, we typically use products containing things such as ethylene glycol mono butyl ether (I think that’s just one ingredient with five words) and, here’s a good one: n-Alkyl dimethyl Benzyl ammonium chlorides. And, to top it all off, there are warning labels to seek medical attention if you get this in your eyes or on your skin.
And we’re cleaning our kitchen countertops with this stuff? The same countertop we prepare our food on? Does any of this seem even a little bit weird to you?
For several years, we have been using what I call “natural” cleaning supplies. And, no, we don’t buy the latest “green” cleaning product (although some are very good). For 99% of our cleaning, we have been using white vinegar in a 50-50 mix with water and baking soda.
We have cotton cleaning towels and we have an old spray bottle we’ve reused and filled with our vinegar solution. This works on bathroom and kitchen sinks, countertops, mirrors, pretty much everything. For scrubbing and more difficult areas (like our stainless steel sinks), we use baking soda and a little water, make a paste, get an old toothbrush and we’re set.
There have been few areas of our house that we haven’t been able to clean with these products. And the big advantages are they are cheap (A gallon of white vinegar costs just under $3 around here and a large box of baking soda is about the same), and we don’t worry using them around the kitchen counters and our food. In fact, there are some pretty good recipes using vinegar and others using baking soda. Hmmm…

But probably one of the best compliments we’ve had, though, is when my mom called me the other day and asked what we used to clean our house, because “it always looks so nice”. Oh yeah.
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Tissues, Toilet Paper and Towels

This section of the blog will require a part one and a part two. There are five paper product areas I want to discuss. I’m going to talk about four of those here in part one and will cover the fifth in part two.

In the forest products industry, toilet paper is the number one part of the “tissue market”. The tissue market includes toilet paper, paper towels and napkins as well as facial tissues. In the U.S., we consume 50% more “tissue market” products than Europe and 500% more than Latin America.

Paper towels are the second most used tissue product. I couldn’t find reliable information on paper napkins and facial tissues. Much of the paper used in tissues and paper products like this is, fortunately, recycled. And, no, the “recycled” content of toilet paper isn’t recycled toilet paper. That would be gross. And think about it, used toilet paper goes down the drain and into the treatment sludge facility; recycling would be virtually impossible.

And, I’m not advocating going paperless with your toilet paper; even I have a limit. But I will suggest you buy double rolls, simply because they use half the little cardboard liner roller things and about half the packaging. And, check the recycled content of the toilet paper you buy.

But, when it comes to paper towels and napkins and facial tissues, I will advocate for going cloth. We switched to cloth cleaning towels quite some time ago and haven’t bought paper towels for a couple of years. We find it works very well and we have purchased enough cloth towels that we can run them as part of our normal washing load of laundry with virtually no additional effort. Buy white ones and use them over and over.

On facial tissues, I have used a cloth handkerchief since high school. I guess I got that habit from my dad. He always used a cloth hanky. To be honest, part of why I dislike paper facial tissues is my finger seems to always poke through into the snot. Sorry to be gross, but that’s my original motivation. Cloth has worked for me for a very long time.

We’ve recently switched (almost 100%) to some simple, white cloth napkins, too. This seems to be working fine for us. We haven’t gotten sick from using cloth napkins, handkerchiefs or towels, so I guess it’s OK. And, we are making even more progress in reducing our trash.

Give it a try; you may even like it better. I know it’s cheaper!