Eco Friendly 101

Why Should You Use Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products?

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Why Should You Use Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products?

As it becomes more and more important to protect our environment and repair the damage we’ve already done to it, more companies are providing us with greener choices and Eco-Friendly cleaning products are a great place to start your endeavor to help prevent any further pollution.

Check Labels

Reading the labels on Eco-Friendly cleaning products will allow you to determine if they are indeed environmentally safe. Some products may claim to be all natural, or good for the environment, but they may only contain one or two natural ingredients and the rest may still be harsh chemicals. Checking the label for unwanted ingredients will ensure you are purchasing truly Eco-Friendly cleaning products.

Manufacturing Techniques

Earth friendly cleaning products should not only contain ingredients that are safe for the environment, the process in which they are made should be eco-friendly as well. The packaging should be minimal, biodegradable, recyclable, and reusable. Researching the manufacturers of certain Eco-Friendly cleaning products will give you some insight into their specific practices and will help you determine if they’re an eco-friendly company you can trust.

Toxins in Your Home and Environment

When using commercial cleaning supplies, not only are the chemicals going to pollute the earth from manufacturing and waste disposal, they will contaminate your home as well. Using bleach and other toxic chemicals to clean your house with will regularly expose your family to harmful fumes. Small children often touch everything with their hands and mouths so using Eco-Friendly cleaning products will potentially prevent them from ingesting any harmful substances.

Home Remedy Cleaning Tricks

You can find Eco-Friendly cleaning products already in your own home. Most of the ingredients in eco-safe products consist of natural ingredients such as water, vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide. Using a combination of these products, as well as natural soaps, will be just as effective in cleaning your home while saving you money.

Polishing furniture with a little bit of olive oil on a cloth can give it a lustrous shine; using a mixture of water and vinegar in a spray bottle can clean glass and mirrors just as well as any commercial products. Reducing packaging wastes and using milder cleaning supplies can help you save the planet while allowing you to save some money as well.

How to Choose Eco-Friendly Products

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With all the increased pollution our delicate world sees, it’s becoming more and more important to go green and live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Using eco-friendly products as opposed to products that have a harsher impact on the environment will ensure you’re doing your part to repair and prevent any further damage to our planet.

Read the Label

Most Eco-Friendly products will be branded with an eco-label to let you know they’re safe for the environment. Read carefully through the list of ingredients, whether it’s food or cleaning products you’re buying, to ensure the product truly has all natural and environmentally safe ingredients. Occasionally, a product will claim to be Eco-Friendly when it contains only one natural ingredient, so reviewing labels will help you to weed these products out.

Consider Life-cycle of the Product

It isn’t just what’s inside of your Eco-Friendly products that count. Manufacturing of the product and packaging should be done in an environmentally safe way as well to prevent excess waste or pollution. Researching the main eco-friendly companies you buy from is an extra step you can take to be sure you know where your merchandise is coming from.

Think about how the product will be used and decide if more waste is created than is necessary. Is the disposal of the product safe? Is there any way you can reuse the packaging or containers? Sticking to biodegradable, recycled, or reusable types of packaging will help you choose the most Eco-Friendly products.

Long Term Use

Earth friendly products don’t apply to food and chemicals alone. Picking consumable products that will last you much longer will significantly cut down on how much waste ends up in landfills. Using rechargeable batteries and more efficient light bulbs will have less impact on the earth while saving you money from frequent replacements.

Clothes and furniture can be Eco-Friendly products as well if you choose high quality items made from recycled materials or all natural fibres. Reusable tote bags can be used in place of the disposal plastic type. Even the building materials you decide to use when building a home should be sustainable and eco-friendly.

The products you choose should be manufactured in a manner that doesn’t harm the environment and should be able to be recycled, reused, or disposed of safely. The most important things to keep in mind when switching to Eco-Friendly products are what materials were used, how the product was manufactured, and what will happen to it when you no longer need it. Small changes can be made to your product choices to reduce the impact we have on the environment.

Eco-Friendly Building Materials and Sustainable Living

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Building any new home can take up a lot of energy and resources so using Eco-Friendly building materials whenever possible will go a long way in reducing the impact your home has on the environment. Responsible building practices can also be used to ensure you’re using as little energy as possible to build your house.

Alternative Types of Earth Friendly Building Materials

Using materials that are cheap and plentiful can save you money while using up less of the earth’s valuable resources. Substitute bamboo for wood whenever possible and use stone, rocks and clay for your foundation rather than concrete. Some aspects of your home may still require wood so try to avoid wood from old growth forests and use your lumber sparingly.

Rammed earth and recycled steel are excellent Eco-Friendly building materials to reinforce the walls and frame of your house. Any recycled materials that you can swap out for the less environmentally friendly ones will give you a greener house that isn’t creating excess waste.

Sustainable Energy for Your Home

Earth friendly building materials aren’t the only way you can protect the environment from the construction of your house. Using natural energy sources both during and after the building process can save you money and prevent a drain on limited energy resources. Solar panelling, wind mills, and water wheels are great ways to provide your house with all or part of its energy.

Determining the types of power sources you’ll be using in advance will allow you to choose the perfect location to harvest your energy. A house powered primarily on solar power will need to be built in a very sunny region. If you happen to live in an extremely windy climate, a series of wind mills can offer you an ample energy source.

Earth Friendly Building Materials inside Your Home

Once you’ve got a floor, roof, and walls, furnishing your house can be turned into an environmentally friendly endeavor as well. Installing strictly low energy lighting may cost more at first but will save you money in the long run when you discover how rarely you have to replace your bulbs.

The tiles and flooring you use can be made from recycled materials while sinks, counter tops, and cabinets can be salvaged from demolition sites. Last of all, ensure all of your major appliances are low energy and environmentally safe to build yourself the greenest house possible.