Green Your Spring Cleaning

April 10, 2008

I already shared on a message forum recently that I decided to opt out of spring cleaning this year. I’d much rather read a book.

Actually, my spring cleaning efforts have been a little unorthodox. Mostly I’ve relied on that nesting instinct during late pregnancy. Y’know – those final weeks of pregnancy when you suddenly spend hours scrubbing the baseboards with a toothbrush at 2 A.M.

Which means that spring cleaning got done 4 times in 8 years… which is not bad actually. ;)

One of the reasons I’m not spring cleaning is because I’m a minimalist anyway. I don’t DO clutter. I’ve said many times that if this whole internet marketing thing stops working for me, I could totally start a business throwing out other people’s junk (I think the technical term is professional organizers.). And about once a month or so I go on a tear and clean and declutter like crazy all over again.

But, I do see the value in certain spring cleaning tasks, and I’ll mention some tips now to help you green up your spring cleaning efforts.

Clean Your Refrigerator Coils

They’re either at the bottom of the front of your fridge (you might have to remove a plastic guard that covers them) or at the back of the fridge, but do vacuum them periodically. Why? Because the fridge will use more energy to keep food cool if the coils are crusty and grody. And using more energy isn’t very green.

Grab Your Essential Oils

Spring cleaning is a wonderful time to have fun with essential oils. When you’re doing deep cleaning you’re going to be sticking your nose in dusty stanky places like closets and attics and basements. Grab your favorite essential oil and put a few drops on cotton balls, and leave them in these stanky places. Or make your own herbal sachets to put in these areas. You can buy muslin reusable tea bags at the health food store and stuff them with dried herbs like lavender, rosebud, cinnamon sticks, cloves and lemon peel. These are much better for your lungs than nasty petrochemical laden artificial air fresheners.

Discover Microfiber

How I love microfiber! I discovered microfiber cleaning cloths about 8 years ago and don’t know how I lived without it before then. It’s the nicest fabric to clean with and you don’t even need any cleaning products to clean most surfaces. Plus they’re washable – not disposable. The ACT Natural microfiber mop I bought several years ago is still going strong. Since it doesn’t require electricity, it’s the ultimate green cleaning tool.

Don’t Toss – Freecycle

The temptation is strong to just toss all your junk into the trash but that’s not very green. Freecycle it or donate it to Goodwill instead.

A lot of other people are talking about spring cleaning right now, including Susanne, who wrote a cool ebook that you can check out here: Spring Cleaning for Moms.

Posted by carrie | Filed Under Homemaking, Misc, Planet Earth 

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Comments

One Response to “Green Your Spring Cleaning”

  1. Nell on April 10th, 2008 10:57 pm

    I do need to clean the coils…thanks for the reminder, Carrie.

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