Green Spring Cleaning In Nyc

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Whether you get there yourself or you hire professionals to do it for you, spring is a great time to go green in NYC. Green cleaning is one of the many things you can do for yourself and your immediate environment to be healthier and make a small impact on the world around you.

To start with, if you’re going professional, look online or in the Yellow Pages for a Green Cleaner or ask your friends and neighbors for recommendations. If you’re going to do it yourself, start with a little bit of an education. Your personal “green initiative” can start with a night’s reading on the possible evils of certain cleaning products containing such ingredients as phthalaltes and volatile organic compounds, phosphates, chlorine bleach and petrochemicals. Then learn of all your green alternatives.

Open up the windows and start a shopping list to make your own green, clean, healthy cleaning products, free from chemicals and additives that can accumulate and make you ill, can send aerosols into the air which lodge in your lungs or the ozone. Put on that ...
... list: vinegar, lemons, baking soda, olive oil and rubbing alcohol, essential oils (for aroma) to name a few. You can look up recipes that call for those basic ingredients and make for yourself everything from counter sanitizer to floor shine. Aim to stay green with reusable microfiber sponges or cloths instead of paper towels, and opt for a reusable broom and mop instead of the disposable models.

Go for the spots in this deep-clean that you might overlook the rest of the year. Clean behind the fridge and on top of it, around moldings and inside drawers and cabinets. Vacuum up every bit of dust and pet hair in otherwise hidden areas, then tackle your screens, washing them off and spraying them clean, leaving them to dry either in the sun or in your bathtub before replacing. Clean everything out, throw out expired food and condiments and clean surfaces with a baking soda and hot water mixture.

Next up is organizing, towards the end goal of reducing. Your mantra of course is “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Go through your magazines and books and offer them to your local library. Go through your clothes and either donate or give away anything you either no longer wear or doesn’t fit well. Go through your drawers and pitch the excess in a recycling bin if appropriate, or do some research and see if you can’t find ways to repurpose some of your cast-off items in a crafty manner. Go ahead and go through all your off-season stuff and store it away.

Get exactly what you need by way of organizational bins, filing systems, baskets, cloth bags and eco-friendly shelving. Anything you can tuck away or get up off the floor to make your rooms bigger and collect less dust. You can keep your storage green by going for wrapped cardboard boxes, bamboo baskets, or anything made from repurposed materials.