Cleaning Agents: Who's Working for You?

Federal Invesitagtion Agents aka FBI appear hero in so many movies. Catching the bad guys, foiling the crime plot, freeing the oppressed, these are just some of the reasons we admire and romantize those agents who work so hard to keep us safe. But what about the agents under your sink? Have they been corrupted? Quick fix, short term gain, greed or avarice, these agents may or may not be just what the situation calls for. 

I Know Agents on Your Side

This post won't cover the range of developments in cleaning chemicals over the past two days let alone the past two years. While products and companies are getting hip to the green agenda, (& the need of the environmental imperative) quality solutions are already available today. 

This ain't your grandma's kitchen, but wait -maybe it should be. Since the dawn of time borax has been there to help people clean their toilets and sinks. In the days of Noah it was used to wash the ship's deck. Okay, well maybe that's not completely acurate, but sufice to say it's here now. Borax, Arm & Hammer, and vinager (white) are possibly all you need to keep your home sparkingly clean even in a 21st century kinda way. 

While you may not have Rosie, the Jetson's amiable, apron clad super cleaning robot to assit you, you do have solutions for all the house-hold areas that need cleaning. 

• Windows: treate them with an equal parts water to vinager (white does best) solution, put them in a spray bottle and wipe glass and window surfaces with old newspaper or some people like to use coffee filters. 
  

• Kitchen: including the sink, you can wipe, scrub and clean most kitchen surfaces with an Arm & Hammer + water solution. Test to see what ratio works best for you, but you can start with 3 tablespoons A&H to each 1/2 cup water; that's 6 tablespoons + 1 cup water; 12 tablespoons + 2 cups water; etc. *Don't forget to wipe down, inside and out, of the fridge. 
  

Floors: A&H + Water + Lime Juice 

• Pipes: send 1/2 cup baking soda, followed by a 1/2 cup vinegar, followed by a few cups (3-4) boiling water down your drains. This will break up the oily grime in the pipes and it should leave them smelling clean and fresh. 
  

• Tile: with an old toothbrush (*don't use your roomates; remember the golden rule?) and a nice pasty solution made of one part A&H and one part water you can clean that grime right out of your grout. 
  

• Toilet & tub: again with the A&H and water. By  now you should be an old pro, but essentially these items call for another solution of the wonder agent and some water. Also you can get the lime scale off of the shiny things by soaking them in the A&H and water solution. 

Some things not to do: nose pick in public - okay that's off topic; what I meant to say, don't continue to buy those nasty aerosol sprays. They're funky, they're junky, and here's the real scoop. 

*Aerosol sprays no longer contain chloroflurorcarbons which was the reason not to use them in the 90's, but they still contain hydrocarbon-based gases which, you guessed it, add to the overall amount of carbon in the air. 

These natural ingredient solutions can help you clean without worry of toxins, or environmental damage. Now if only you can get your spouse to pitch in.  

Toilet Training: Where's Your Green?

It occured to me through the help of a couple books/ blogs, etc. I'm reading that the toilet accounts for about 1/3 of the water your house uses. Obviously, your house and you are really one in that type of observation. So here's something you can do to help your house or apartment use less water while getting the same or better performance. 

Toilet Training

Dams and/or displacement bags can help reduce the amount of water being filled into your tank each time you flush. Essentially, when you flush drinking quality water fills into the resiviour. It sits there till you flush the comode, which initiates the process of it flowing down to the bowl to wash out the #1 & #2 that might be there. 

Using a displacement bag or a dam means less of the city's drinking quality water is required to fill the tank to where it trips the plung.  

Purchase a displacement bag for only $2.00!  Or maybe the dam's your style? 

Hardees Death Offers & Your Carbon Emissions

Today I made the rare, and disastrous decision to ... go to Hardees (Carl's Jr.) for breakfast. I know about MSG in sausage, and what it does to your brain. I know about Styrofoam coffee cups, and food packaging overkill...but it was right next to the location I'm working from... and you know the story. 

So, my point though, isn't how bad a jerk I am, alone. My point is about the yay-hoo driving my car (me) plus the yay-hoos in the two cars in front of me, in addition to the one that drove in behind me - and all the yay-hoos in their cars everyday waiting for their double QP, or a Mexican pizza, or the whatever it is.

Lb.'s in the Air

Carbon emissions is a killer. Stand behind a work truck for a couple of minutes. Feel dizzy?Salivatingly nauseous? That blue smoke we are pumping into the atmosphere at an alarming rate everyday is adding up. 

Too, as more people and more machines take up landing and practice here on Earth the potential for gross volumes of this stuff continues to increase. What's more, factories in developing countries (factories here too) don't have quality standards that have the long term in mind. 

This things deserve our attention. 

Emissions is killing people's lungs, increasing the number of toxin related asthma cases globally each year. What's more, environmentalists see the growing potential of environmental destruction motivated by the burning of fossil fuels.

When we sit in our cars, heck when we run them, they're putting out a bi-product of the fuel that's burning under the hood. This bi-product in addition to the same or similar bi-product emitting from the factories down the road and in developing countries adds to the Earth's ability to trap infrared rays within the Earth's atmosphere. 

Infrared. Think about that. It doesn't sound good does it? How about living in a house full of infrared rays; sound cozy? Sounds a lot like the type of "rays" that nurse technicians (radiologists) wear metal sheets in attempt to avoid soaking up. 

That's what's happening. Carbon emissions (which are puke worthy themselves) lead to the Earth's ability to house more infrared rays in the atmosphere. What's more, that problem adds to the melting of the polar ice caps and glaciers, which adds to all sorts of other turbulent stuff. 

So, avoid Hardees, and if you end up there; consider parking and taking the quick walk inside to get your grease-ridden cloro-carbons and Earth murdering styro-excess packaging. And if you see me there, make sure I'm doing it too, would ya?