June 19, 2007 | Bathroom, Laundry, Bleach alternatives, Vinegar, Cleaning tips, Cleaning products
A full 50% of the searches that lead people here have to do with bleach. I have a feeling there are people out there who are bothered by bleach (for health or ecological reasons) but don’t know how to clean without it. So, here are some suggestions. The main purposes for bleach are to whiten and disinfect. So here it is:
- To whiten stained spots on clothing: put some lemon juice on the spot, rub in a bit of salt, and leave it in the sun for an hour or two. It lifts the stain.
- To clean spills from health contaminants (raw meat or eggs in the kitchen, urine in the bathroom): Straight vinegar is a great disinfectant. I advise keeping a sponge with vinegar near your cutting boards for frequent use.
- To whiten laminate counter tops: Bon Ami - it’s a powder found at the grocery store in a canister - usually right next to Bar Keeper’s friend (which also works relatively well. But we prefer Bon Ami - it uses less elbow grease, and less elbow grease means more cleaning stamina!). We’ve removed coffee stains, raspberry, blueberry, and strawberry stains, and marks from the bottom of pots and pans.
- To disinfect:
- Borax: buy it in the supermarket where they sell detergents - in my grocery store it’s next to the powdered dishwasher detergents. Borax is a powder and is safe to mix with virtually anything. Combine it with some vinegar, lemon juice, or just plain water to clean virtually anything. It’s completely harmless and safe to use. Gloves and ventilation not required (as opposed to bleach).
- Vinegar: it disinfects, kills mold, bacteria, and germs. (As an aside: bleach does not kill mold - it just whitens it so you don’t see it. But bleach will leave living mold spores that will continue to grow.) Vinegar’s potency is released when combined with salt, so for a nice strong disinfectant add some salt to your vinegar, dilute with water if you’d like, and spray away. I just used it to clean the toilet seat in the bathroom where my little girl is potty-training. It works remarkably well.
Any more alternative uses you need for bleach? Let me know and I’ll fill you in!
Posted by mudlark @ 1:59 pm
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Darlene says:
I have been using a bleach/water solution to clean up after puppy messes (we have 8 puppies). I see that I can use a vinegar/salt/water solution instead thank you! However, you mention the lemon juice/salt leave in sun for an hour to whiten a stain on clothing. What do you recommend for a whole load of whites? What do you recommend for a wash load, white or colors, to prevent sour smelling clothes form very hard water? ( we DO have a water softener) Thank you!!
October 11th, 2007 at 3:58 pmPhil says:
Can I use vinegar as a faric softner in the washing machine, or, would it be harmful to the stainless metal drum?
December 8th, 2007 at 5:07 pmmudlark says:
That’s a yes on the stainless drum - vinegar won’t hurt it at all. As for Darlene’s questions… if you have a whole load of whites to brighten, I’d try Shaklee’s Nature Bright if I were you. Another alternative is chlorine-free bleach. The primary ingredient is hydrogen peroxide. Shaklee’s Nature Bright is kinder to your health and the planet, but chlorine-free bleach avoids many of the problems of regular bleach.
Now, on the sour smell from very hard water, I’d add a bit of vinegar to the last rinse cycle. It doesn’t soften quite as well as your typical fabric softener, but it will kill odors quite well and it does a fair job of softening fabrics.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:17 pmteresa says:
I am freshly pregnant and now very concerned about my daily use of bleach to sanitize and disinfect the dishes at the school where I teach. I know bleach is an approved sanitizer in the manual dish washing process. I do not know what else I can use… I get that I could use hydrogen peroxide and/or vinegar, but in what proportions? I need to be able to convince the local health officials that I am not leaving any gaps by using an alternative. Logic doesn’t always work with government employees.
SO, I am filling a sink with water and adding a bit of sanitizer, then running my “clean” dishes through the water and letting them air dry. I do not have access to sufficiently hot water (over 170 degrees) to sanitize without an additive. PLEASE HELP!
March 10th, 2008 at 10:26 pmLiz says:
You say in here that Borax is completely harmless, but I’ve heard from several sources including wiki that it can be highly poisonous and should be handled with gloves.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:27 pmmudlark says:
Thanks, Liz. Let me qualify that. As long as you don’t plan on licking your fingers after you clean, you don’t need gloves for Borax. The boric acid (which is what Borax is made from) can be toxic if swallowed, especially for young children and small pets. To seriously harm an adult you’d need an excessive amount, and I don’t think you’d want to eat a handful of it. I do recommend keeping it out of reach of children (as you would with any cleaner) and using common sense. However, unlike bleach and other harsh chemicals, it does not contain VOCs (volatile organic compounds), and has no dangerous fumes. It’s also stable, meaning that it can be mixed with other stable ingredients (vinegar, salt, baking soda, etc.) with no worries.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:31 pmKateri says:
can you reply to Teresa - while I am not pregnant I do also want to find an alternative to sanitizing with Bleacn yet also appease the local Sanitation Inspector.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:55 pmmudlark says:
Teresa and Kateri, I’m afraid I haven’t found anything that I would confidently recommend. A big part of that is because of the bureaucracy involved. I’m afraid school systems and sanitation departments have pretty strict testing and tons of red tape. It’s hard to get changes made. I’m a little surprised that they would use bleach (toxic if swallowed, even in small amounts) with anything from the kitchen, but I don’t have the ‘golden ticket’ for changes to be made. I would recommend checking out Green Seal to see if they’ve certified anything for this purpose. Their certification is highly recognized and would help push changes through the red tape. I’d also check into California school systems and sanitation departments - whatever they use goes through more strict health and environmental requirements than what we use in the rest of the US. I’ll try to look into it some more, but so far I’ve had no luck in finding information.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:17 am