I’m going to warn you the earth science teacher in me is going to come out in full force today. I know I am blessed. I am personally surrounded by more fresh water than probably 99% of the people on the planet. Within ten miles of me are creeks, ponds, an aquifer (underground lake), Lake Neahtawanta, Oswego River and Lake Ontario.
What’s not such a blessing is what gets dumped into these water sources. I’ve toured the sewage treatment facility — gross. I put drains and toilets together for a reason: it is easy to watch the “bad” stuff get swept away never to be thought of again. Unless of course you pause and think for a moment where does water come from. Basically, all the water we have on this planet is the same water that has been here for millions or billions of years. You could have in you right now: dinosaur pee — the sweat of your favorite rock star — the tears of your grandmother.
The water in your toilet and the water that goes down your drain will eventually become the water that you pour into your glass to drink. So to clean my toilet bowl, I use baking soda (aka bicarbonate of soda) that I scrubbed around with a brush — I take a cheap bottle filled with white distilled vinegar and spray that around — the two will bubble up having made carbon dioxide gas (the stuff we exhale) and I flush. Sometimes I just use one or the other. Note that if your toilet bowl brush has metal on it, the vinegar will cause it to rust. The outside of the toilet, I use vinegar just as I would any other spray cleaner.
Drains — about once a month — I put about 1 tablespoon of baking soda down the drain, followed by maybe 1/2 cup to cup of vinegar (I don’t really measure). It will bubble. I then follow with some boiling water. This is best done to keep your drains clear. If you let the drain get clogged then you will probably have to manually snake it. You can adjust the frequency as needed.
Vinegar is a weak acid so you obviously want to use the same precautions as spraying any other substance. Vinegar does have a strong odor but it dissipates very quickly. As noted before NEVER use vinegar and bleach together.
I hope those that are following this series of posts are checking out the comments for previous post — there have been some great suggestions shared. I hope they continue with this post. I know some people cannot use vinegar so I hope those that can’t will share what they do.
If saving money isn’t enough reason to switch to these less toxic options — I share with you a TED talk (less than 10 minutes) to help change your mind. If we want to keep amazing creatures around (including ourselves) today is a good day to change.
Bloggers who have blogged about their non-toxic cleaning strategies: Kathyrn, Sonda, Michellina, and MCSgal. If you have as well let me know I’d love to share a link.
Life in the City with a Future 
Beautiful video. Thanks for the info. More vinegar! 😀
Still more uses to come. 😀
Reblogged this on sondasmcschatter and commented:
AMEN– AMEN– AMEN——
LOVED THE VIDEO—- & WE LIVE JUST BELOW TABLE ROCK LAKE & DAM ON LAKE TANEYCOMO– WHICH FEEDS OUT OF THE BOTTOM OF TABLE ROCK LAKE– & LAKE TANEYCOMO FEEDS INTO BULL SHOALS LAKE SO WE LIVE WITH IN A THREE LAKE AREA– WE ARE SOOO BLESSED ALSO—-
MY HUSBAND ( GARY) SPEND HIS PROFESSIONAL LIFE TAKING CARE OF WATER SUPPLIES FOR BIG COMPANIES & FOR CITIES– DOING WATER TESTING– ETC- ETC- ETC- ETC & PREACHING ON SAFE WATER– & TRYING TO CLEAN WATER SUPPLIES!!!! HE LOVES WHEN ANYONE SHARES INFORMATION ON OUR PRECIOUS WATER SUPPLIES!!!!! 🙂 THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Clean) Water was always my passion when I taught. I’m glad this would make Gary happy. Thanks for the support and the reblog. I’ve really enjoyed the video — I’m glad you did too. 😀
My only problem is that I have difficulty with vinegar.
KATHRYN– I HAVE NEVER EVER HAD PROBLEMS WITH VINEGAR UNTIL I GOT SICK THIS TIME— I STILL CAN USE IT— BUT HAVE TO BE VERY CAREFUL NOW– AS BEFORE I COULD USE AS MUCH AS I WANTED WHEN EVER I WANTED— MAYBE WHEN I AM BETTER– I WON’T HAVE PROBLEMS!!!
I got a call yesterday from a former colleague, apparently the superintendent spoke about the need to go fragrance free to the school staff. I don’t know exactly what was said but maybe it will prevent someone else from becoming so sick they can’t even be around vinegar. Have a fragrance free day.
Would you share what you use instead? That is the problem with MCS and EI — often what one person can tolerate another cannot. I find it interesting that it’s accepted that humans all have subtle differences in the foods they prefer or dislike or have an adverse reaction to and the people with the dislike/reaction are not labeled lazy or have a mental health problem because their body tells them to avoid that food. But those of us with MCS because we don’t all have the same exact negative reaction to the same chemicals as other MCS sufferers — some believe we are lazy and don’t want to work or are over reacting or just plain making it up. I hope you have fragrance free day. 😀
This is just a guess, but citrus is acidic as well. Can you use lemon juice or citric acid or something like that instead of vinegar? I haven’t researched it – it’s just a thought I had.
Thanks I forgot about lemons. I personally haven’t used them but I just did a quick internet search and found an interesting site that deals with most of the stuff we’ve had questions about. I’ll include it in the next post which was going to be about all purpose cleaners anyway. Perfect timing to bring it up. Thanks.
Reblogged this on allergictolifemybattle and commented:
Thank you Colleen for this lovely series.