Green cleaning tips: Don't use lemon juice

Tuesday, April 09, 2013 by: Antonia
Tags: lemon juice, green products, cleaning products

(NaturalNews) The first step to green cleaning is to get rid of all the toxic stuff from under your sink. The chemical nightmare that is in many people's cupboards is often highly toxic to humans and pets. Plus, you'd need a round of WHMIS training just to be sure you don't mix the wrong stuff together and cause an explosion or a bigger toxic disaster that can turn deadly.

Top recommended green solutions

Many bloggers and eco-writers that discuss green cleaning often talk about using lemon juice and straight vinegar as part of their earth-friendly arsenal, but perhaps there is a better way.

Take lemon juice: It is highly touted as a grease cutter and while that may be accurate, as Chaya Kurtz indicates in a FoxNews report, lemon juice, being juice, "leaves a sticky residue on surfaces."

An alternative suggestion is the combination of "a dish soap and water solution and a scrub brush," and also some elbow grease. Kurtz claims that even the eco dish soap does a better job at cutting grease than lemon juice, and without the sticky residue.

Diluted vinegar, Kurtz says, is just as effective as straight vinegar, so why deal with the smell and skin irritation? Plus, there is no sense in wasting the product. In fact, really watering it down with "6 parts water to 1 part vinegar ratio," is her suggestion.

In addition the report said that 100% vinegar leaves "a residue on glass surfaces," and "is very harmful to hardwood floor finishes."

Forget DIY laundry detergents

The castile soap, vinegar and baking soda combo isn't recommended, but straight castile soap as a laundry detergent is. Kurtz found it more effective. However, she does recommend adding "vinegar to the rinse cycle to wash the soapy residue off the your clothes." Including the vinegar at the beginning "will counteract the castile soap."

Sources for this article include:

http://www.foxnews.com

http://www.networx.com/article/8-ways-not-to-use-vinegar

http://lisa.drbronner.com/?p=292

About the author:
A science enthusiast with a keen interest in health nutrition, Antonia has been intensely researching various dieting routines for several years now, weighing their highs and their lows, to bring readers the most interesting info and news in the field. While she is very excited about a high raw diet, she likes to keep a fair and balanced approach towards non-raw methods of food preparation as well. >>> Click here to see more by Antonia