Spring Cleaning (and Greening)

Summer's coming but, technically, it's still spring and I'm attempting to clean up some of my dirty habits.

GREEN UP # 1
My mother would frown, the aunt's may whisper... when they hear I wash my clothes in cold water instead of hot. I've tried becoming more aware of my environmental impact with easy changes like this. Simple switches are huge money and energy savers, though. Washing machines produce over 500 pounds of CO2 a year when run on hot water. Clothes get just as clean and may last longer when laundered in cold water.

GREEN UP #2
Cleaning products that many of us grew up with off-gas. I know, it sounds kind of foul, and it is. The products throw off Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which can affect your home environment and your health. Home cleaning products can make the air in our houses 2-5 times as toxic as the polluted Los Angeles air I breathe outside each day! In effect, just by cleaning with mom's tried and true products, we're contributing greatly to our city's smog problems. So check out a few tips that I've tried to put into practice:

There are so many "green" products out there. Be a discerning consumer when confronted with these buzz words:
Biodegradable: This is an unregulated term that's only meaningful if it specifies the amount of time it takes for the product to decompose, as most substances will eventually biodegrade over time given the right conditions, such as sunlight.
Non-toxic: There's no official definition or third-party verification for this claim. Don't trust it.
Organic: Household cleaning products aren't regulated by the Organic Foods Production Act, but some of their ingredients, such as plant oils, can be labeled "certified organic."

For more info, see ecolabels.org.

Plus, here are a list of some cleaning ingredients to avoid:
Alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEs), common in detergents and disinfectants and are suspected hormone disruptors.
Ammonia is poisonous when swallowed, extremely irritating to respiratory passages when inhaled and can burn the skin on contact.
Butyl cellosolve (aka butyl glycol, ethylene glycol monobutyl) is poisonous when swallowed and a lung-tissue irritant.
Chlorine bleach (aka sodium hypochlorite), an all-purpose whitening agent, can irritate the lungs and eyes and in waterways can become toxic organochlorines.
Diethanolamine (DEA) can combine with nitrosomes (often-undisclosed preservatives) to produce carcinogenic nitrosamines that penetrate skin.
Phosphates soften water for detergents but contribute to algae blooms in our waterways which can kill off fish populations in our rivers, lakes and oceans.
Sodium hydroxide, found in drain, metal and oven cleaners, is extremely irritating to eyes, nose and throat and can burn those tissues on contact.
Sodium lauryl sulfate, a common sudsing agent, can penetrate the skin and cause contact dermatitis.