Chemical Cleaners

Have you seen this image on the back of your household cleaning products? It means that it can cause serious damage to the environment (both immediate and long-term).

But that must be ok (I try to justify to myself), as they wouldn’t be allowed to sell this stuff to everyone so easily if it was that dangerous (even though there is also a corrosive and don’t inhale symbol on it too)?! As long as I wear protective gloves and open a window it will be fine, and then it all gets washed away down the sink/toilet and gets properly treated/disposed of right? Er, well as it turns out no!

There have recently been numerous articles in the news about how water companies have actually been regularly releasing raw sewage into England’s rivers and seas (both legally and illegally). In 2020 they apparently did it more than 400,000 times for over 3 million hours! What?! And for some reason the Government and Environment Agency seem to be unable/unwilling to stop them.

So to try to address this problem from both sides I have now sought out and signed the latest petition on this issue, and I thought that I would also now share my own efforts of how I am trying to reduce the amount of chemicals that I personally use around the home, as they could easily be making it into our natural waterways.

https://www.change.org/…/ukparliament-make-reducing…

I know that it is a boring topic and so I won’t bore you with all of the information that I found, but in a nutshell we really don’t need to be using all of these strong chemicals. Not only is it damaging the environment but it is also damaging our health.

There is actually a great range of more natural cleaning products available to us that do the job just as well.

For me I now use:

• Kitchen surfaces: Diluted washing up liquid.

• Hard floors: BIO-D Multi Surface Sanitiser.

• Toilet bowl: ECO Leaf Toilet Cleaner.

• Toilet and bathroom surfaces: Delphis bathroom cleaner.

• Shower screen and windows: Diluted white vinegar.

• Mirrors: Water and microfibre cloth.

• Dusting: Just a duster (aerosol polishes really aren’t necessary).

• For limescale I simply use lemons which work brilliantly.

I get most of these cleaners from my local refill shops, the only exception being the Delphis bathroom cleaner. It does come in recycled plastic bottles but I am now looking to try bulk ordering it in concentrate from Robert Dyas.

(If you want some more alternatives I found the https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/…/ethical-household…. very helpful.)

So for any of you eager cleaners out there still clutching your bottle of bleach please do just consider easing off on the chemicals. I have been using the more natural products for a couple of years now and I really can vouch for their effectiveness. Apparently the Delphis Eco products even have two Royal Warrants, so if it is good enough for the royal bathroom throne I figure it must be good enough for mine!