
Site Owned by Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission
Many commercial cleaners contain substances that are toxic and can burn skin or eyes on contact. Without proper ventilation, their use can also cause injury from harmful fumes.
Thoughtless disposal of hazardous products can have harmful impacts on people and the environment. Disposal in trash, or pouring them down the drain, can disrupt wastewater systems, seriously injure waste handlers, and contaminate drinking water.
This page offers non-toxic cleaning recipes for a safer home and cleaner environment. Non-toxic cleaners are cleaners that you can use relatively safely, as compared to other commercial cleaning products (which range from fairly safe to extremely dangerous). This does not mean that you can safely eat non-toxic cleaners or spray them in your eyes. Always label your home-made cleaners and keep them out of the reach of children.
These recipes generally work just as well as commercial cleaners and are less expensive. With the use of essential oils, non-toxic cleaners can smell more pleasant than commercial cleaners.
Many of the recipes on this page are mostly from Nontoxic Housecleaning by Amy Kolb Noyes by Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, VT, 2009. For more recipes and information on household cleaners, this is an excellent resources well worth reading.
Clean and Green, Annie Berthold-Bond. New York: Ceres Press, 1990.
Clean House, Clean Planet, Karen Logan. Gallery Books, 1997.
Nontoxic and Natural: A Guide for Consumers; How to Avoid Dangerous Everyday Products and Buy or Make Safe Ones, Debra Lynn Dadd. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1984.
The best way to tell if a product is hazardous is to read the label. DANGER indicates the product is extremely hazardous: a taste could be fatal. WARNING and CAUTION signal a somewhat lesser hazard. Select products with a CAUTION label over those with WARNING or DANGER. The best selection is one with no hazards.
There is also "third-party certification" by Green Seal, EPA Safer Choice, and UL Ecologo.
"NonToxic Housecleaning: Using 3 Ingredients" provides tested nontoxic recipes as well as reasons why we should be switching to nontoxic cleaners.
"Down the Drain" provides a handy list of household toxics and how they should be handled-safe for the drains, into the trash, or save for an HHW collection.
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