Make Your Spring Cleaning Green

The spring equinox is fast approaching, and soon we can all throw open our windows and let the March breezes blow winter away. And it's about time: Levels of pollutants in indoor air can be from two to more than 100 times higher than outdoors, according to the U.S. EPA. That indoor pollution is due in large part to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that evaporate, or "offgas," from home decorating and cleaning products.

So step one for spring cleaners is: Open a window and let those pollutants out! Yet even in this season, when a vase of daffodils can fill a room with a lovely natural scent, many consumers stubbornly keep using synthetic room fresheners and fragranced cleaning products that are full of VOCs and other toxic chemicals. These can make our indoor air unhealthy, provoke skin, eye, and respiratory reactions, and harm the natural environment.

Take those so-called air fresheners. According to a study published in New Scientist in 1999, in homes where aerosol sprays and air fresheners were used frequently, mothers experienced 25 percent more headaches and were 19 percent more likely to suffer from depression, and infants under six months of age had 30 percent more ear infections and 22 percent higher incidence of diarrhea.

In choosing alternatives, however, consumers need to be alert to greenwashing. "Just because a product says it's natural doesn't mean it's nontoxic," says Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation, which produces genuinely eco-friendly cleaning supplies and household products. The word "natural" is undefined and unregulated by the government and can be applied to just about anything under the sun -- including plastic, which comes from naturally occurring petroleum. Because no standards exist, claims such as "non-toxic," "eco-safe," and "environmentally friendly" are also meaningless, according to Consumers Union's Eco-labels website. Currently, only food and herbs can be certified organic, so the word "organic" on the face of a dish or laundry soap also doesn't wash.

Instead of being taken in by slogans, David Steinman, coauthor of "The Safe Shopper's Bible," advises looking at labels for specific, eco-friendly ingredients that also perform effectively. These include grain alcohol instead of toxic butyl cellosolve as a solvent; coconut or other plant oils rather than petroleum in detergents; and plant-oil disinfectants such as eucalyptus, rosemary, or sage rather than triclosan. You can also mix your own cleaners, as does Annie Berthold-Bond, green living editor at care2.com and author of "Clean and Green" and "Better Basics for the Home." According to Berthold-Bond, a few safe, simple ingredients such as plain soap, water, baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), vinegar, washing soda (sodium carbonate), lemon juice, and borax can satisfy most household cleaning needs -- and save you money at the same time.

If you're in the mood to detoxify, getting rid of germs doesn't have to mean overkill: This is your home, not a hospital. In 2000, cleaning products were responsible for nearly 10 percent of all toxic exposures reported to the U.S. poison control centers, accounting for more than 206,000 calls, over half of which concerned children under the age of six. According to Philip Dickey of the Washington Toxics Coalition, the most acutely or immediately hazardous cleaning products are corrosive drain cleaners, oven cleaners, acidic toilet-bowl cleaners, and anything containing chlorine or ammonia (which should never be combined -- see below).

Read on to get the dirt on various conventional products and ingredients and their eco-friendly alternatives. With a little effort, you can make your home a truly clean haven rather than a chemical storage tank.

Dish Detergents, Laundry Detergents, and All-Purpose Cleaners