Going Green At Home

April 28, 2009
Interview with Diane MacEachern, author of Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World

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Mike Carruthers:
If you want to be green and protect the environment one thing you can do is…

Diane MacEachern:
Buy products that are in concentrated form - and this is particularly easy to do with cleaning products like laundry detergent.

Diane MacEachern, author of the book Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World

Where you look for a 2X or 3X on the laundry detergent bottle (the liquid bottle) and even some powders now are coming in concentrated form. And it just means that the product is concentrated so you need less of it and you're buying a smaller bottle actually with a lot more cleaning power.

A common complaint about green cleaning products is they just don't clean that well.

I've found certainly for my kitchen, my bathroom, my house the only thing (household cleaners) I use and am perfectly satisfied with the results of are Bon Ami, which is nothing but a pulverized rock crystal. It has no phthalates in it, no parabens, no toxic chemicals, no synthetic fragrances and it cleans everything except the wood floor and my windows - I don't use it on those two things.

And to clean most kitchen counters…

I have a big box of baking soda in my cupboard and I just shake a little of it on the counter. It's got just enough of an abrasive to it - which is all you really need to cut whatever dirt and grime that's on the counter. Again water mixed with a little baking soda on my kitchen counter is great.

Complete interview not available.