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Vinegar the wonder cleaner
Author John Treloar
- White vinegar is a cheap and effective alternative as a household cleaner.
How much do you spend on cleaning products each month? It's time to stop using all those chemicals to clean your home. Vinegar cleaning is much cheaper and it's better for the environment.
White distilled vinegar is the best type of vinegar to use for cleaning because it has the most acid content. You'll quickly find that you can clean just about everything with white vinegar. It's a really simple way to make your home chemical-free.
Cleaning with vinegar dates back thousands of years. It's easy to buy white vinegar for cleaning, it's a lot less expensive than buying commercial cleaning products and it's still the best for cleaning and your health.
Here are a few ways to use vinegar as a cleaning product.
Vinegar window cleaner
Mix one tablespoon of white vinegar to one litre of water. White vinegar cleaning for any kind of glass or windows will stop all those awful streaks from grease build-up. It's also great for cleaning your eye glasses!
Remove lime residue
Tea kettles and irons build up lime deposits over time. When they get really bad, fill them with white vinegar and turn them on. Turn off before rinsing. Rinse them out, fill with fresh water and run them again.
Drain cleaner
Boil two cups of vinegar and pour it down the drain a small amount at a time. Allow the vinegar to remain in the drain for about 5—10 minutes before pouring a pot of very hot water down the drain. The alternative is to use ½ cup of baking soda poured into the drain followed by ½ cup of warm vinegar. Cover the drain and allow to stand for 5—10 minutes before running cold water down the drain.
Ant remover
If you are having a problem with ants, just wipe your benches with a solution prepared from equal parts of vinegar and water. Crawling insects hate vinegar. It works well on your floors too. If you find where the ants or insects are coming into your home, spray the area with white distilled vinegar.
If you would like to find out more, try a Google search on the internet.
What is green cleaning?
The main goal of green cleaning is to use cleaning solutions and methods that keep our environments healthy and safe. As well as specially designed green cleaning products, you can also use substances like baking soda, vinegar, salt and lemons as cleaning agents around the home.
Many cleaners are now marketed as being biodegradable. This means that they are able to decay within the environment.
Other cleaning products may use recycled packaging or their producers donate a portion of profits to environmental causes. Whatever choices you make about your cleaning supplies, there is a huge variety of environmentally friendly choices for those interested in green cleaning. Read the packaging first.
You can make your own green cleaning kit using the four common household ingredients listed above.
Try using:
- an open box of baking soda in your fridge to help get rid of nasty odours
- baking soda rubbed directly onto clothing to remove the smell of vomit or baby spills and stains
- lemon juice and salt mixed to a paste and dabbed onto clothing to remove rust stains
- lemon juice mixed with vinegar and/or baking powder as a cleaning paste on dishes, surfaces and stains
- salt poured directly onto carpet to soak up red wine spills.
More information on removal of household stains can be found on the Consumer website, www.consumer.org.nz
