home air pollution

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What Are Your Green Goals for 2009?

December 24, 2008 in Holiday by Jennifer | No comments

With New Year’s almost here, it’s likely you’re starting to think about your goals. Do you have some green household goals that you’d like to work on in the upcoming year? If you’re looking for ideas, here are some good ones:

Go green in 2009 by…

Ditching toxic household cleaners and chemical based home air fresheners.

Improving the air quality in your home.

Green your kitchen java for the entire year! Coffee is a great place to start if you’re looking to go green your lifestyle.

Drinking tap water, or at the very least buying a water filter over bottled water.

Starting a compost routine.

Only buying sustainable home furniture and decor.

Giving your baby a fresh green start in life.

Pledging to reduce, reuse, and recycle more at home.

Planting some trees around your house or in your neighborhood.

Taking shorter showers.

Conserving electricity around the house.

Do you have another green home goal? One I didn’t mention? Leave a comment about your green goals for 2009.

Oh, by the way, my green goals are as follows:

1) Recycle all the toilet paper tubes – this was actually my goal last year. I’m great at recycling everything but the tubes still sometimes end up in the bathroom trash vs. the recycling. I’ve improved since last year, but this is an ongoing goal.

2) Cook more. This last year was nuts (seriously) I bought more packaged foods than maybe ever in my entire life. That’s not great eco cooking. It’s much better to buy less packaging, and cook closer to the earth meals.

Green Tissues for Cold & Flu Season

December 4, 2008 in Healthy Green Home by Jennifer | No comments

In the last post, Eco-friendly Flu Fighting, I noted that I’m sick today. Since I tend to blog along the lines of how my day is going, it’s pretty much sick day here at Best Green Home Tips.

Right now let’s take a look at earth-friendly options for tissues.

Your most earth friendly tissue option are cloth handkerchiefs; but there are pros and cons.

Pros of cloth handkerchiefs:

  • Reusable.
  • Cost effective; much cheaper than buying oodles of tissue.
  • Often won’t dry out your nose as much as paper tissue.
  • Especially softer on a child’s nose.
  • You can use them plain, or drop some essential oil on them for treatment.
  • Can be used as cleaning cloths when they get too old.

Cons of cloth handkerchiefs:

  • Washing! Seriously, how much laundry do you want to do while you’re sick?
  • Can be icky.
  • Kids, in my experience, don’t tend to handle cloth tissues as well. They leave them laying around, and or try to toss them in the garbage.
  • You may need to purchase a lot in a bigger family, and if everyone wants their own, you’ll need to choose specific colors or monograms.

The next best tissue is recycled.

There aren’t too many pros and cons here, the basic gist is that recycled tissue is a good reuse product if you want paper tissue, but they’re not as green as cloth; because obviously they don’t last as long.

Options:

Organic cotton flannel handkerchiefs: Packaged in a brown paper bag. Available in your choice of natural colour or hand-dyed purple.

Colorgrown Organic Cotton Flannel Hankies

Organic Cotton HANKIES – Singles

100% Recycled Seventh Generation Tissues; Hypo-allergenic; Whitened without chemicals containing chlorine; No added dyes; No added fragrances

Green Forest Facial Tissue: 100% Recycled Paper; Whitened Without Chlorine; Minimum 40% PCR Content

Gaiam Facial Tissue: 100% recycled paper with a minimum of 20% post-consumer content; hypoallergenic, unscented and bleached with environmentally safe sodium hydrosulfite and hydrogen peroxide.

Eco-friendly Flu Fighting

December 4, 2008 in Green Cleaning, Healthy Green Home by Jennifer | No comments

I’m fighting the flu, or some sort of killer cold, hence the topic. I feel terrible, and also a little blah because it’s not even that far into cold and flue season. Darn huh?

If you’re looking to try and avoid (or deal with) all these sick germs flying around, I’ve got some eco-friendly ideas for you:

First of all you want your immune system to be in pretty good overall health. This means avoiding things like toxic home cleaning supplies, chemical laden fragrances in most conventional air fresheners, and chemical fibers in your home furniture, floors, and textiles. Your overall goal is to keep your air clean and free of any icky chemicals. Read the following posts to learn how:

Next you’ll want to avoid breeding germs in your home. Some studies show that the use of antibacterial products; like hand gel and dish soaps, actually help germs, not fight them. You may kill some off at first, but it’s like antibiotics. If you give a germ a dose of antibacterial soap, over and over, the germ may not keep dying off, in fact the germ may adapt and just be able to eventually outwit the soap. The best soaps to use are not antibacterial, but basic, natural and organic soaps. One nice hand soap is Manor Hall Soap Company Liquid Hand Soap.

If you’re already sick and looking for treatment options my advice is usually to start with the smallest plan of attack and move upwards. One, keep your house clean or if you’re already sick, see if someone will help you clean. Cleaning with hot soapy water does remove germs from household surfaces. Two, try some natural remedies like rest, hot showers, essential oils, tea and honey, and so on. To learn more about earth-friendly health care visit Simply Home Remedies. Three, visit the doc. I’m way into natural remedies, but I’m also not against using conventional health care when you need it. I don’t think overuse of medications or antibiotics is smart, but neither is suffering away. Smart medical care is sometimes best. Don’t avoid the doctor’s just because you want to focus on natural treatments.

Also read: Five natural & non-toxic care remedies for kids

More sick day posts coming up!

Stop Air Pollution in Your Home

September 8, 2008 in Air Quality, Green Cleaning, Green Your Home by Jennifer | 3 comments

There are plenty of things that can contribute to air pollution in your home. Your goal should be to have pure, clean air inside your home, both for the sake of planet health and the health of your family. Allergies, asthma, and even cold-like illnesses can all be affected by the quality of air inside your home.

Following are some ways to make sure your home air quality stays clean and healthy:

No smoking allowed: If you smoke, go outside, away from other people. Smoking in your home, especially if you have kids is dangerous for both health and fire safety reasons. In fact some studies show that banning indoor smoking is the number one best way to improve your home’s air quality.

Use your fireplace or wood stove smartly: Wood fires can release tiny particles and smoke that invades the air and your lungs. If you don’t have to use a wood burning fireplace, it’s better not to. If wood heat is your only source of heat; yes for some people it still is – in Humboldt we had only wood heat so we’d open windows and burn cleaner wood. To learn more read the EPA guide Wood Burning Efficiency and Safety.

Open the windows: Fresh incoming air is a great way to push out old stale air, and any icky household fumes.

Buy some naturally air cleaning houseplants.

Quit stirring up the dust: Use a damp rag to dust, not a feather duster or dry cloth. You may be tempted to buy those static cloths for dusting, and they do work, but they’re not long-lasting. You’ll end up tossing them. A wet cloth works just the same.

Clean regularly: Keeping a clean house is one good way to keep your air clean. This means making sure that items like appliances and humidifiers are cleaned as well.

Don’t EVER use toxic cleaners: Chemical, toxic, yucky home cleaners contribute to much of the indoor air pollution you encounter – and worse, none of these cleaners are necessary for a clean home. Choose green homemade cleaners instead. To learn more read the following: