Reusable and Sustainable Cleaning Methods
Open up any cabinet under a sink and more than likely a pile of cleaning products will be there. Many may not realize that chemicals in cleaning products are harmful to the environment. Fortunately, green cleaning methods are becoming more popular. The best sustainable cleaning methods are non-toxic, biodegradable and made from renewable resources.
Using Cleaning Techniques That are Good for the Environment
Most clean our homes with hard work and diligence and believe that our house is a place where there is no pollution. This assumption is totally wrong. The United States Environmental Protection Agency reports that levels of pollutants can be 100 times higher inside our homes compared to the air outside. Where does this indoor pollution come from? It comes from the unstable organic compounds that come off household cleaners and decorating projects.
Common household cleaners contain the chemicals such as phosphates, chlorine, ammonia and triclosan. Phosphates are found in dish washing liquids and detergents. When this chemic...
The next week was dedicated to the titration of household supplies. For this, we used two sodas, Cheerwine, and Diet Coke, as well as dish soap. Dish soap, along with many other household cleaning agents, has buffering properties. A buffer acts as a pH stabilizer. It is a combination of a weak acid and its conjugate base, or a weak base combined with its conjugate acid. If a strong acid ion is added, the buffer simply replaces it with a weak acid ion, therefore causing little change in the pH of the solution. Household cleaning products usually have some form of a buffer, because otherwise, they would burn skin to touch. As expected, the two sodas were originally acidic, while the soap was basic.
When we think of air pollution we think of the refineries in our cities and the exhaust coming from our cars mostly. In reality there are many more pollutants that we don't think about every day. The six most common air pollutants are; “Carbon monoxide, Nitrogen oxides, Sulphur oxides, Particulate matter, Volatile organic compounds, and Ground-level ozone (nitrogen oxide and Volatile organic compounds reaction)”(David Suzuki Foundation). The fact is people are dying from air pollution and we are doing nothing to make it better, in fact air pollution is getting worse.
Clorox and Lysol are the most commonly used disinfectants in the country. Disinfectants are used to kill bacteria which are microorganisms that grow rapidly and that can be found everywhere. Bacteria cannot be seen with the naked eyes but they are present, on your phone, desk, computer, even in the air, and they can also lead to diseases such as cholera. Some people prefer Clorox over Lysol to clean with. These two disinfectants had been tested to find out which one is the most effective at killing bacteria. Clorox is often said to be the best due to containing an active ingredient known as sodium hypochlorite which contains antibacterial activity. To test this hypothesis, a table was sprayed in three different sections, one with Clorox, one
Pollutants are contaminants that enter and affect the natural environment which can cause negative changes. There are two main types of pollution, air and water, which occur from different sources and have different effects. Air pollution is the main cause of “dirty air” in the United States. Suburban areas suffer from outdoor air pollutants as well as indoor air pollutants. Indoor air pollutants are caused by the burning of coal and wood, which are used for heating. Outdoor air pollutants are caused by chimneys, in which smoke is released into the air, and crop fertilizers, which are generally used in rural areas. The impact air pollution has on humans are large cases of health defects in rural areas: such as cancer, tuberculosis, heart diseases, and low birth weights. J.P Majra, author of “Air Quality In Rural Areas” states that, “This leads various health problems, mainly affecting the respiratory and cardiovascular system...” (Majra, 2). This shows that if the United States alone uses this much fertilizer, in which affects our health, imagine how much the world will be affected. Kirk Smith, professor of environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health states that ”nearly 10% of all lost-life years worldwide” has been due to air pollution (COEH
...plications affecting efficiency. More focus is necessary on the indoor environment in schools, day care centres, hospitals and nursing homes for elderly, because children, hospital patients and elderly are sensitive subgroups. There are a number of indications that the indoor environment at home is normally worse than in the indoor office environment. The population spends most time at home, and children are exposed at home for many years (National Safety Council, 2009). This suggests that improvements of the home environment may be a cost-effective to reduce the indoor exposure burden in the population. The link between indoor and outdoor air pollution should not be ignored, as most of the exposure to outdoor pollutants occurs indoors. Finally, the function of energy saving and climate changes for the indoor environment and SBS will be an important future issue.
Clean’s Magic Eraser is shown to be a versatile cleaning product, able to completely rid of messes and stains. However, an emphasis of disease-ridden messes aren’t focused on; instead, the advertisement shows more typical messes of a 21st century household, such as marker stains and soap residue. The life or death germ aspect is absent from today’s cleaning advertisements.“If women failed to protect their families, not only would they feel intense guilt, they would also be deemed inefficient housewives for being unable to stop supposedly preventable diseases from harming their families” (58). The advertisement doesn’t make using the Magic Eraser a life or death option, but it does put an emphasis on keywords such as “tough messes” and “clean routine”, implying that if a person wanted to keep a clean household, they must use the Magic Eraser in a routine
Hand decontamination is the use of hand wash or alcohol rub that reduces the number of bacteria on the hands. Hand decontamination is also referred to as ‘hand hygiene’. Hand Hygiene is an integral part of nursing care, as effectively decontaminating hands significantly reduces the risk of pathogens being transferred from one surface to another, or from person to person (NICE, 2014). This means, that through practicing good hand hygiene, nurses can actively reduce the incidences of preventable healthcare associated infections, therefore improving the health and mortality of their patients.
Even though children are the ones at the most risk of this toxic pollution, we are all at risk because it is very hard to eliminate these household items that
Detergent comes from the Latin word detergere meaning to clean, it is defined as a cleansing agent. Therefore, water itself is a detergent. This essay looks at soap and soapless (or synthetic) detergents. Both substances we use everyday and have a big market commercially, they effect everyone. Soaps are made from natural products and soapless detergents are produced chemically, each having advantages and disadvantages.
1999, 71, 181-215. Minear, R., Amy, G.. Water Disinfection and Natural Organic Matter: History and Overview. ACS Symposium Series -. 1996, 649, 1-9. Richardson, S. Water Analysis: Emerging Containments and Current Issues. Journal of Analytical Chemistry. 2003, 75, 2831-2857.
Contamination of Water and Air. Urbanization enhances the proliferation of industries, automobiles, and agricultural practices. Most toxic air contaminants are produced as we endeavor to fuel our homes, automobiles, factories, energy production facilities, and might also be discovered in indoor cleansing mixtures, and construction supplies. Furthermore, pollutants found in gasoline, dry cleaning services, and paint thinners and strippers; some concentrations are presumed to cause cancers, or elevate other serious health risks. As a consequence these noxious air contaminants can be deposited in soils and water sources allowing them to be taken in by plants or swallowed by animals....
We just learned about the outdoor air pollution, now we have to learn about the indoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution, is founded with the highest concentration of harmful fumes or toxic pollutants than outdoors. According to Nature, Causes, and Burden of Condition, air pollution is considering “a major threat to health, particularly for women and young children, who may spend many hours close to the fire”, other words most of the household uses “solid fuels burn them in open fire or simple stoves that release most of the smoke into the home”, creating more air pollution (Bruce, Rehfuess, Mehta, Hutton, & Smith
In nature, water is cleaned through the hydrologic cycle, but in the human world, that process is no longer enough. Humans add to the compounds of water and need to additionally work to remove our pollutants from used water.
Back when my parents were little, it was not uncommon for the wife to stay at home and tend to the housework. Being a housewife requires certain skills for cleaning a house. Three rooms in particular are the kids’ room, the bathroom and the kitchen, all require certain cleaning products, equipment, and processes to clean properly.
Storage and use of cleaning materials; Bulk cleaning agents shall not be stored in areas where food is prepared, processed, and/or stored. (Not accordance with the standard), some cleaning materials were store at the kitchen nearby foodstuffs.