How Can Natural Cleaning Benefit You?

Have you ever wondered about the benefits of natural cleaning? Here are some reasons why you may wish to switch to natural cleaning in your home.




Health Benefits
Look on any the container of any cleaning or personal care product and you'll find a list of seemingly unpronouncable ingredients (if they list the ingredients at all):  Parabens (butyl-, ethyl-, methyl-, propylparaben), sodium laurel sulfate (SLS), sodium fluoride, propylene glycol, padimente-O, octyl-methoxycinnamate, D&C colors, FD&C colors, formaldehyde (embalming fluid) or fragrance, just to name a few. The effects of these toxins are listed here. Also, you can visit http://www.scorecard.org/health-effects/ to see a list of ingredients. In fact, you'll find 19 pages of carcinogens there!

According to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency-produced “The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality”: “A growing body of scientific evidence has indicated that the air within homes and other buildings can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air in even the largest and most industrialized cities.”

Obviously, if the products on the shelves are the cause of cancer, asthma and other health issues, then they are certainly not healthy. That is the #1 benefit of natural cleaning. Using safe, natural products is going to improve your health.
Cost
Products in your home such as baking soda, vinegar, and lemons are far less expensive than purchasing toxic chemicals. Americans spend 69.1 billion dollars each year on cleaning products. How much do you spend per week? Per month? My family of 6 spends $6.57 per month to clean our home. Mind you that's counters, floors, tubs.. everything. I have not included personal care or laundry in with this figure. My weekly cost for laundry is 50 cents. Yes, you read correctly.. 50cents.  It's something to consider, isn't it?

Earth Friendly
Using natural products which are safe (I specify "safe" because natural doesn't necessarily mean "safe". Consider flouride and chlorine for instance.) is earth friendly. Washing toxic chemicals down your drain endangers aquatic animals. It also pollutes the water and land it with which it comes into contact. Also, when using those products, much water is needed for rinsing as much of the toxic residue off as possible. Natural cleaning reduces the need for so much water. For instance, when using a bottle of 50/50 water and vinegar along with a microfiber cloth, there is no need to rinse most of the time. Both evaporate and leave nothing toxic behind to cause health risks or endanger the earth.
Reduced Cleaning Time
One of the big benefits that should appeal to anyone is that natural cleaning reduces the amount of time spent cleaning. The average American woman spends 2.6 hours per day on household activities. Of that, 1.5 hours is spent cleaning. That's 90 minutes per day cleaning. In our household of 6, that has been reduced to 15 minutes twice per day (after breakfast and after dinner).

My personal experience with switching our cleaning service from toxic to natural cleaners was that a house which took us (2 people) 4 hours to clean now takes approximately 45 minutes. Consider our extensive checklist and you'll appreciate how productive we are in our cleaning. How does natural cleaning reduce work time? The answer is simple: Natural cleaning products work harder thereby lessening the time we must spend working.

Those are only a few of the many benefits of natural cleaning. Not only does natural cleaning benefit your health and well-being, but it saves time, money and the earth.

Naturally Yours,
Michelle Cannon