Guest Post on Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning: How to be Environmentally Friendly During your Spring Clean

                                                     

As spring greets us each year, we feel the urge to shed all those extra layers of clothing we wore all winter—as well as a year’s worth of accumulated items just sitting around at home. We love spring cleaning as it gives us a sense of accomplishment, and most of all, enough closet, garage, and drawer space to make way for this year’s purchases.

This year, try being just as nice to Mother Nature as you are to your home. Challenge yourself to staying eco-friendly while tidying up the house for another year of memories. If you haven’t started your spring cleaning and want to be green while getting clean, here are a few tips to get started:

Use a Little Elbow Grease

Stop yourself from reaching for the vacuum, polisher, and all the other electrical appliances when cleaning up. Help conserve precious energy by using your own arms, hands, and legs to leave each surface dust-free and shining. You’ll even shed a few pounds along the way, as housework can burn up to 400 calories an hour! If you need a little help, enlist the muscles of friends and family and arrange a spring cleaning party. Just provide some refreshing drinks and great food, and you’ll have a house full of energized, happy cleaners.

Make Your Own Cleaning Solutions

Find eco-friendly alternatives to replace chemical-filled cleaning solutions. Non-toxic, homemade solutions help save the earth by reducing chemical fumes that dissipate in the atmosphere and add to the greenhouse gases that pollute the air. Cutting grease, deodorizing, and making surfaces shine, these do-it-yourself potions are just as effective as the commercially-made ones—my furniture swears by the polish made of olive oil and lemon juice!

Best of all, they’re inexpensive and come straight from your pantry or nearby convenience store. If you don’t have the time, check online for the most eco-friendly commercial solutions and find a ready-made set that can be purchased at stores or shipped straight to your home.

Recycle

 

Sort through the items you want to dispose of and find ways to recycle or reuse them. Old shirts that fit no one and have damage can be reused as cleaning cloths around the house. Tablecloths that have been ripped can be used the same way. Find recyclables that you can send to the recycling center to exchange for a little cash. Like the adage says, one man’s trash can be another man’s treasure; with a little research and a touch of imagination, you can be both men.

Give Items Away

Give items that aren’t of any use to anyone at home, but are still good and working, to charity. Contact your local Goodwill or Salvation Army about items they can accept as donations. Sort through your disposables and separate those that will still be of some use to others. Instead of filling landfills, these items will be able to help others in need while reducing waste.

Be realistic

Resolving to be green during your spring clean is a wonderful idea, but be sure to be realistic towards your time and capabilities in doing so. Make a list of all the rooms you plan to clean out and allot enough time to do them all. Don’t undertake something too ambitious and have the project fail your expectations. If you don’t think you can finish in a day, set another weekend to complete it. Prepare for a little disappointment if your newfound ways of spring cleaning will take more effort, or feel and look different to what you’re used to. Ask friends or family for help and ask them for tips if they’ve gone through it.

Spring cleaning while being earth-friendly can seem like a daunting task at times. However, all you need is a little help, a lot of patience, and some time to accomplish all you want to finish. Set your sights on a green spring clean this year and help not only yourself, but the Earth, too.

Jessica Phan is a designer for Balsamhill.com a purveyor of high-end artificial Christmas Trees.   Living in the San Francisco Bay Area is perfect for her because she has a wide range of interests, including Art & Design, Fashion, Photography, Painting and Thrift Store Shopping.

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