Cleaning again, this time the dishes

So as with the laundry, I wanted to find a gentler way to do the dishes than using bottles and bottles of chemical dish washing soap.  I found a few sites that had the same recipe:

• 1 cup baking soda or washing soda
• 1 cup borax
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 cup citric acid

Mix together. Use 1 Tablespoon per load. You can add vinegar to the rinse aid dispenser to help with the cloudiness.

My borax was kinda chunky and it took a long time to break up all the chunks once it was all mixed together.  Next time I would put it through a sieve as you would with baking flower. 

All the ingredients were quite inexpensive.  I live in a small town and can't get them at my local grocer but I was able to order it though one of my favorite sites www.well.ca .  The citric acid was about 8 dollars and it took the whole container for the recipe, next batch I make will be with out it, I have seen some recipes without it and I am hoping I wont see the difference with out it.  I will keep you posted.

As for its storage, originally I was going to put it into a gar but that does not seem practical because it is hard to spoon it out.  As you can see in the photo I opted  for a Tupperware, and though it is easy to access I am still not thrilled with it.  So the final solution is going to be using an old liquid laundry detergent bottle.  It has a wide opening and the powder should flow easily.  First I have to wait to finish one of the 7 bottles filled with my homemade detergent.

As with the laundry soap situation:

Recycled Content:

The boxes the ingredients come in are recyclable.

We are reusing containers that would otherwise go to be recycled.

VOC/ Chemical free:
The ingredients for this recipe are chemicals, yes, but they are natural to the environment and biodegradable. These chemicals are not man made and have a natural place on the planet. Eco-pioneer products are even packaged in recyclable or compostable packaging and printed with vegetable inks. We buy ours through well.ca, free delivery.

Reduce construction and living waste:
The containers for the ingredients coming into the house are recyclable or compostable so there is no waste being created. The storage containers are old detergent bottles which are being reused.

So I did a load as soon as it was made and I am quite happy with the results.

Cleaning up the laundry room

The key words in the Materials and Resources section of  LEED are:

Recycled Content

VOC/ Chemical free

Reduce construction/ living waste

So, we are taking these elements and applying them to our life style as well as our house renovations.  

This week we are replacing our traditional laundry soap with a new, homemade, simple ingredient and environmentally friendly laundry soap.  

• 1 bar of soap or one cup of pure soap flake
• 1 cup of Borax
• 1 cup of washing soda
• a big pot ( that holds more than 2 gallons) 
• a grater
• a funnel
• a long spoon
• 2 empty gallon jugs/containers

1. Grate your bar of soap into your pot.
2. Full one gallon jug and pour water into pot with grated soap.  
3. Heat until the grated soap dissolves
4. Add the Borax and washing soda.
5. Bring to a boil. It will coagulate.
6. Turn off the heat.  Add 1 gallon of cold water.
7. Stir well.
8. Pour 1 gallon of your detergent into each container.

Use half a cup per load.

 

Recycled Content:

The boxes the ingredients come in are recyclable

We are reusing containers that would otherwise go to be recycled

VOC/ Chemical free:
The ingredients for this recipe are chemicals, yes, but they are natural to the environment and biodegradable.  These chemicals are not man made and have a natural place on the planet.  Eco-pioneer products are even packaged in recyclable or compostable packaging and printed with vegetable inks.  We buy ours through well.ca, free delivery.

Reduce construction and living waste:
The containers for the ingredients coming into the house are recyclable or compostable so there is no waste being created.  The storage containers are old detergent bottles which are being reused. 

Over all I think we did really well with this excises.  I love the how clean the cloths have turned out.  They smell great and it is only costing us pennies a load, with a daughter in cloth diapers, this is a real bonus.  If you lift the lid to your washing machine you wont see any suds, though the water will be dark with dirt. 

Inspiration for the first step.

While I was on maternity leave my husband and I decided that we wanted to be able to stay home with our daughter.  To do this he works 3 nights a week at the local pub and I have started my own Interior Design business focusing on residential design in my area of Wakefield, Quebec, Canada.  Having determined that the mission statement of my business would be making "environmentally responsible" design accessible to those in my community, it seamed only responsible to exercises this mission in our home life as well.  I feel that the LEED program is a very well thought out list of criteria for ERD (environmentally responsible design) and have decided to use it as our guide through this process.  So follow us through the process of creating a LEED Platinum home and lifestyle.

The documents we are using as guidelines:
LEED Canada for homes 2009
Additional info
xls checklist

Visit www.yourperfectspace.ca for more info on my business.