Five Incredibly Easy Ways to Be Greener Everyday

Can't afford a hybrid car? Not comfortable making your own bio-diesel yet? Still haven't got that home garden producing enough to feed a family of four? Have you started thinking that taking your own shopping bags is about as green as you're going to get? Would you like to do more but aren't willing to be radically inconvenienced or bankrupted in the process? I have five easy ways that you can be a little greener. Along the way, you'll get healthier and wealthier, too. Sound too good to be true? Well, check it out.

1). Start off with a green company for your cleaning products. I highly recommend Shaklee. I've been using Shaklee since I was a little kid and I'm grateful my mom used products that didn't expose us to heavy chemicals, off-gassing or petro-chemicals. A lot of green products compromise on cleaning ability, but Shaklee's products pack great cleaning power and work as well or better than many of the non-green choices. Check out Shaklee online. They just won yet another prestigious environmental award last year. The best part? They aren't some Johnny-come-latelys jumping on the green bandwagon. They've been around since the late forties/early fifties and they have always been environmentally aware and socially responsible. All of their products are highly concentrated, so they pack less, ship less, use less plastic to hold products, use less trees to make boxes to ship products. It also means more product for you, so you buy less and use less. That translates to less diesel to ship products to you and less waste in the stream. The Shaklee products have all been tested to break down to environmentally healthy constituents when flushed or put down a drain. Yes, environmentally healthy. Unlike any other cleaning product that I know of, these products are actually good for the earth as they breakdown.

2). Use less hand soap and dishwashing soap. Every time you wash your hands or dishes, all that soap gets washed down the drain and ends up at a water treatment plant, a septic tank or is deliberately dumped into our waterways. Use less. It just makes sense. I have found the easiest way to do this is buy the Dawn dishwashing liquid that comes in the foaming pump. I have had the same bottle for two years, I just keep refilling it. One bottle of soap lasts for six months instead of six weeks and the foam is highly effective at getting hands and dishes clean. I do the same thing in the bathroom. Using a foaming dispenser, I fill it with water and baby shampoo and it works wonderfully. Why baby shampoo? It's inexpensive, it smells good and it's very gentle on hands, face, pipes and environment. My $.99 bottle of shampoo is now 9 months old. Score! Experiment to see what ratio of soap to water works best for you. I find that if I fill the dispenser first and then add approximately a tablespoon or so of soap I get the perfect mixture for me.

3). For cleaning up grease spills, getting glass clean, wiping down appliances, cleaning the bathroom and mopping the floor, I make my own cleaning mix that is non-scented, non-allergenic, very environmentally friendly and cheap. I use the highly concentrated Shaklee household cleaner called Basic H. ( H stands for household.) In a quart spray bottle I mix 16 ounces of water, two tablespoons of Basic H and fill the rest with plain old hydrogen peroxide. This cleaning mix is my own invention and works better than almost anything else I've ever used. It doesn't perfume the air with synthetic chemicals, it's totally harmless for pets, it makes glass and stainless shine and it can be used on food surfaces. I figure since hydrogen peroxide is used as a mouthwash, it's got to be safe enough to use around food. Add a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and get a nice citrus-y scent. This mix is fantastic for the inside of your refrigerator and microwave. If food is stuck-on in the micro, put in a cup of water first and boil it for five minutes. Let it sit for another two or three minutes, then spray and wipe. Believe it or not, I also use this mix to clean my regular oven. I set the oven on low, put in a pan of boiling water and let it sit for five minutes. If things are particularly bad, I may have to do this step more than once. (It's worth it to me. Oven cleaners are made from lye and a hundred other toxic chemicals and I'll do anything to keep these out of my house and from going down the drain.) Then I spray and wipe. Line the oven with a sheet of clean tin foil and you'll cut down on the amount of baked on gunk.

4). Re-use your Swiffer cleaning solution bottle and never buy the throw-away pads again. It says "don't reuse" on the bottle, but I have yet to figure out why. I bought my Swiffer kit 2 � years ago. It came with the wet mop Swiffer, a bottle of cleaning fluid and five wet mop pads. As soon as I was done with the company-made solution, I took the child-proof cap off the bottle and filled it with the above solution. Beautiful floors, clean and sparkling, that are safe for my dogs and my nieces and nephews to crawl around on. And my refilled Swiffer bottle costs me around $.14! I also never buy the pads. First off, it's disturbing that they look like giant maxi pads. And I hate the idea of throwing those plastic lined pads into the landfill. So I don't. I use old washcloths that have now made it to the rag bag. I wet the cloth, fold it in half and put it on the sweeper. I hold it in place by using the rubber bands off of two bunches of broccoli (those suckers are sturdy!) After a few passes with the mop, I take the cloth off, turn it around, and keeping going. By flipping it and then turning it inside out, you can get four clean surfaces. If it starts getting icky, rinse it hot water and go right back to mopping. This works on so many levels. One, rubbing a dirty cloth over a dirty floor does not equal a clean floor, so this way you can control how clean your cloth stays. Two, when you're done, simply throw it in the laundry for the next time. Three, it's free!

5). Non-synthetic potpourri and air fresheners. The multi-billion dollar industry of cleaners and perfumes would have you believe that your house stinks. A lot. And the way to fix that is to spray the air with synthetic chemicals and dyes and with petro-chemicals that off-gas and cause all kinds of health problems. That's crap, and we know it. But we buy into all of the commercials. Bottom line, a clean home smells good. The cleaning mix that I make leaves no "smell". It's not perfumed and it's not a cover up. Every thing will just smell clean. But it is nice to add a cozy smell. How to do this without the chemicals, the dyes, the unhealthy waxes and fumes? Try a home made potpourri of rose petals, orange and lemon peels, whole cloves and cinnamon sticks. This can be made dry and placed in a dish, or, my favourite, put into a potpourri crockpot. Don't have one? No worries. Use a small sauce pan. My favourite recipe for fall and winter is a cinnamon stick broken in half, three or four whole cloves, a lemon or an orange cut in half and a sprinkling of apple pie spice. Put in to crock or pot and cover with water. Remember to check often and don't leave the house or go to sleep with the crock plugged in or a pan on the stove. In spring and summer, I enjoy rose petals, rose essential oil, rose geranium essential oil and a drop of spearmint oil. I also love a lime cut in half and four to six mint leaves, covered with water. A great place to buy cheap spices and extracts is your local Big Lots or dollar store. Pick up some shwag vanilla, rum, lemon, orange and almond extracts. Get a bottle of pumpkin or apple pie spice. You're not going to cook with them, so it's ok if some of the volatile oils are gone in the spices. Have fun with it and create smells that you love, for a fraction of the cost to your wallet and no cost to your lungs, liver or nervous system.

Well, there you go. I told you. Easy! Requires almost no effort and saves your money, your health, your pet's and family's health, your environment. . . .It's a win/win/win. Please leave me comments and let me know what you're doing to be a little greener. It ain't easy, as Kermit said, but little steps can add up to miles walked.