The most common usage of spring cleaning refers to the yearly act of cleaning a house from top to bottom which would take place in the first warm days of the year typically in spring, hence the name. However it has also come to be synonymous with any kind of heavy duty cleaning or organizing enterprise. A person who gets their affairs in order before an audit or inspection could be said to be doing some spring cleaning.

Green cleaning is a term that describes a growing trend in favor of using cleaning methods with environmentally-friendly ingredients and chemicals to preserve human health and environmental quality. Green cleaning techniques and products avoid the use of chemically-reactive and toxic cleaning products which contain various toxic chemicals, some of which emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) causing respiratory and dermatological problems among other adverse effects. Green cleaning can also describe the way residential and industrial cleaning products are manufactured, packaged and distributed. If the manufacturing process is environmentally-friendly and the products are biodegradable, then the term “green” or “eco-friendly” may apply.

Harmful chemicals are prevalent not only in general consumer cleaning products but also in foods, cosmetics, home construction, clothing and many industries. In the average American home, around 63 synthetic chemical products can be found. This equates to approximately 10 gallons of hazardous chemicals.  By using more ecologically-friendly products, including green cleaning formulations and products, consumers may be able to reduce human health risks by reducing exposure to these and other harmful chemicals.
Is Your Home or Office Making You Sick? Click Here to see products and information to help you create a HEALTHY HOME TODAY!!

So when you are working on your Green Spring Cleaning, you may want to donate your excess to charity.  There is a website called excessaccess.com that matches you to local charities that will come and pick up your donations and the website will give you a receipt that can be used at tax time.  Also if you go on to the EPA.gov website and click on ecycling they will advise you on how to recycle those old computers and cell phones.

For Green Spring Cleaning your home office,  think paperless and go to Billeo.com that will let you download a software tool that stores all your passwords and connects you to your vendors that you pay online. 

If you have baby clothes or baby items that you want to trade or give away to others who need them, go to zwaggle.com where you can join a “swapmeet” where you get points for your trade to use for other things you need.

Here on Green Earth Friend we have a recycling widget where you plug in your item and zip code and it will tell you where you can bring your item to be recycled.  Check it out at the end of the far right column on this website.

Good luck to everyone with your Green Spring Cleaning and I hope all these tips help everyone to keep their spring cleaning eco-friendly and green.

This service is saving the landfills from untold millions of pounds of items, that to the owner have become useless, or they have upgraded the item. Giving meaning to the phrase one persons garbage is another persons treasure.  Freecycle.org now has 4,675 groups and 6,402,000 users around the world and is growing  daily. Making Freecycle a major contributor to the recycling industry. To sign up for this service go here and happy freecycling. We think that Freecycle is a Green Earth Friend!

Prices on aluminum, cardboard, paper, plastics and steel make it where it’s not even worth recycling.  Recycling plants all over the U.S.  are stacked to the brim with bails of recycled materials with no relief visible in the near future.  California is poised to start a program that will require the packaging of new goods to be of recycled materials ,which if done nation wide, could get recycling back on its feet again.

Recycling centers provide an invaluable service which could be severely impacted if  a lot of these centers go out of business.  So all we can do is hope the economy picks up soon, so that recycling can again move forward.  If not recycling may take years to get back to where it was a year ago.

View these videos to learn more about this issue:>

Here are some things that you and your kids can get started with:

Recycling involves processing used materials into new products in order to prevent the waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution.

Recyclable materials include many kinds of glass, paper, metal, plastics, textiles, and electronics. Although similar in effect, the composting or other reuse of biodegradable waste, (such as food or garden waste) is not typically considered recycling. Materials to be recycled are either brought to a collection center or picked up from the curbside, then sorted, cleaned, and reprocessed into new materials bound for manufacturing.

A fun way to recycle at home is to have different colored recycle bins for each category of recycling and make it into a fun game for the kids to guess which color bin the recycled material belongs in and why. Prizes or special outings could be a reward for the most correct answers.

Composting is simply managing the natural process of decomposition for our benefit. Natural bacteria, worms, fungi, and a variety of invertebrates help turn food and yard waste into compost. The larger decomposers (some insects and some earth worms) process material physically by tearing or breaking it apart. The smaller or microscopic organisms process material chemically. It is the chemical decomposers that release nutrients in a form that plants can absorb. They work together, feeding in your pile (and on each other), to break down materials. They need a moist environment to thrive. Some of these organisms feed directly on the waste, while others feed on the bacteria in the pile. As they feed on the compost pile, they generate a lot of heat, which helps the material decompose. The internal temperature is dependent upon the microbial activity, not heat of the sun. What belongs in my compost pile? The goal is to create favorable conditions for beneficial microorganisms to grow and do their work of decomposing vegetable and fruit scraps and yard waste.

A successful compost pile has three basic needs:

1. Air Circulation Microbes require air, otherwise the anaerobic microbes will take over, and they are stinky! Air can be incorporated into the pile by turning the pile with a shovel or hoe, or adding bulky, oddly shaped material to make little spaces.

2. Consistent Moisture Level Microbes also require moisture. The microbes live in the thin sheath of water that coats the organic material in the compost pile. If there is no water, the microbes will dehydrate and die. But too much water will displace all of the air space causing anaerobic conditions. In general, the mixture should feel about as damp as a wrung-out sponge. Pick up a handful of the mixture and squeeze: if water drips out – that’s too much, if the material falls to pieces as soon as you open your hand – that’s too dry, if the mixture stays in a clump for a few seconds before breaking apart – that’s just right.

3. The right ingredients –The bulk of the organic matter should be carbon with just enough nitrogen to aid the decomposition process. The ratio should be roughly 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen (30:1) by weight. Adding 3-4 pounds of nitrogen material for every 100 pounds of carbon should be satisfactory for efficient and rapid composting.  Nitrogen rich “greens” include: green leaves, coffee grounds, tea bags, plant trimmings, fruit and vegetable scraps, fresh grass clippings. Carbon rich “browns”: dried grasses, leaves, straw, wood chips, twigs, sawdust, shredded newspaper, dead plants.

What does NOT belong in my compost pile? Food with meat, dairy, or oils Pet feces Diseased plants Weeds gone to seed Ash from charcoal or coal Bones Grease Branches and wood chunks

How do I use my finished compost? Mix compost in with your soil to improve quality. Use it to fill in low spots in your yard. Use it as mulch for landscaping and garden plants. Mix compost in the soil for potted plants. Top dress your lawn to retain moisture.

Reducing Waste or the zero-waste strategy is to turn the outputs from every resource-use into the input for another use, or in other words outputs become inputs. An example of this might be the cycle of a glass milk bottle. The primary input (or resource) is silica-sand, which is formed into glass and formed into a bottle. The bottle is filled with milk and distributed to the consumer. At this point normal waste methods would see the bottle disposed in a landfill or similar, but with a zero-waste method the bottle can be saddled with a deposit, at the time of sale, which is redeemed to the bearer upon return. The bottle is then washed, refilled, and re-sold. The only material waste is the wash-water, and energy loss has been minimized. Zero waste actually can sometimes make financial sense as well. The bottle shape accounts for 98 percent of the value of the item, as a lump of glass the ‘bottle’ is worth only the final 2 percent of its value. In this sense a minimal resource (the glass) can be resold many times over at 1000 percent of its value each time.

Tree Hugger is a term often used for people who respect and love nature and are environmentally aware of their impact on this Earth. Teach your kids to also respect and love nature and take them to see some of the wonderful big old Trees on our planet and give them a hug! Take a picture and share this Green bonding experience with others.

]]> http://www.greenearthfriend.com/2008/10/educating-green-kids/feed/ 0