Windows get dirty, but you don’t need to reach for chemical cleaners to return them to a sparkling shine. Use natural, nontoxic ingredients such as vinegar, baking soda and lemon juice to clean and polish windows. Chemical window-cleaning agents contribute to environmental damage and can contribute to indoor air pollution.

Under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, household cleaners are the only household products for which manufacturers are NOT required to list all ingredients.

This makes it very difficult for the consumer to fully evaluate which products are the safest to use in their home. If the manufacturer does include an ingredient statement it is voluntary and in many cases this disclosure is inaccurate and incomplete. There are also about 9,000 chemicals on the market that have not been tested.

Making your own!

You can select here to download a pdf with a list of common household cleaners and their corresponding non-toxic, easy to make and refill at home ingredients!

Non-Toxi Cleaner for windows
Equal parts white vinegar and water with lemon juice to help with fragrance and cleaning power.

Common Ingredients in chemical cleaners

The below ingredients are commonly found in cleaning products. Listed to the right are some of the concerns and possible dangers of these chemicals.

Dyes -  Have been linked to cancer, can be toxic to animals, slow to biodegrade.

Alcohol – Respiratory and skin irritant, flammable, can act as an aggressive solvent which may damage surfaces in the home.

Synthetic Fragrance – Central nervous system depressant, respiratory and skin irritant, slow to biodegrade, toxic.

Sulfates (such as SLS & SLES) and/or sulfanates – Irritating to skin and eyes, may contain 1,4-Dioxane.

Ethoxylates (Petroleum Based Cleaning Agents)     - Ethylene oxide/petroleum based, may contain1,4-Dioxane, many pose threat to marine life, linked to cancer and sterility.

Petrochemical Solvents – Petroleum based, many are respiratory and skin irritants, toxic, may damage surfaces in the home.

This way they can be used again and made into something else like playground equipment or shampoo bottles. Then this plastic won’t just go into our landfills or be burned up into our atmosphere. Plastic lids do not “break down” so they are not “BIO-DEGRADEABLE”. If  plastic is burned, you also release harmful chemicals and a lot of these lids end up being burned in incinerators.

If you want to help, put your plastic lids in our collection boxes, start collecting them in a paper bag at home and then put them in these boxes. There will also be one in the grade school lobby! Corbett Cares 4H Club will do the rest. 

Being responsible for our environment starts with just doing one thing. Collecting these lids is our “Dot”. What’s yours?

Select here to learn about plastics and their numbers!

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Imagine

A line of plastic bottles going around the planet five times. This would be the equivalent to the number of plastic bottles discarded ( not recycled ) every week in the U.S… just for water. this is not including bottles for juices or sodas. ( data 2009 – http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org ) Imagine the waste created by all types of single use plastics put together,  by all the countries in the world (the US is only 5% of the worlds population) including plastic bottles, plastic bags, plastic utensils, cups, containers plastic lids and more. Iit is really hard to imagine.

We all can make a difference.

When we know better – we can do better. choose a better future by refusing or not using non-recyclable, non-biodegradable, single use plastics.

“Be the Change you Wish to See in the World.” – M. Gandhi

Reprinted with permission from Mr. John S. Pritchett

Sustainability refers to a very old and simple concept (The Golden Rule) “…do onto future generations as you would have them do onto you.”