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Do It Yourself Household Cleaners!

EIGHT ESSENTIALS

Avoid purchasing commerical toxic cleaners by keeping an ample supply of these eight items, which make up the basic ingredients for nearly every do-it-yourself cleaning recipe.

1. Baking soda: provides grit for scrubbing and reacts with water, vinegar or lemon by fizzing, which speeds up cleaning times
2. Borax: disinfects, bleaches and deodorizes; very handy in laundry mixes
3. Distilled white vinegar: disinfects and breaks up dirt; choose white vinegar over apple cider or red vinegars, as these might stain surfaces
4. Hydrogen Peroxide: disinfects and bleaches
5. Lemons: cut grease; bottled lemon juice also works well, although you might need to use bit more to get the same results
6. Olive oil: picks up dirt and polishes wood; cheaper grades work well
7. Vegetable based (liquid castile) soap: non-petroleum all-purpose cleaners
8. Washing soda: stain remover, general cleaner, helps unblock pipes; should be handled with gloves due to its caustic nature. Washing soda is usually found in the laundry aisle of grocery and drug stores. Don't forget to pick up an empty spray bottle at the hardware store, and keep those old rags and used toothbrushes for wiping up and scrubbing.

WHOLE HOUSE

All-Purpose Cleaner

1/2 cup borax

1 gallon hot water

Mix in pail (or use smaller amounts in a spray bottle: 1/8 cup borax to 1 quart of hot water) dissolving the borax completely; wipe clean with rag.

Floors - Wood

1/4 cup white vinegar

1 gallon warm water

Linoleum

1 cup white vinegar

2 gallons warm water

Mix in mop bucket, rinse afterwards.

Furniture Polish

1/2 cup white vinegar

1 teaspoon olive oil

Mix and apply with a clean rag to dust and polish. Reduce the olive oil if wood looks too oily.

Metal Polish - Copper and Brass

2 Tbsps salt

White vinegar

Add vinegar to salt until you've created a paste.

Adding flour will reduce abrasiveness.

Apply with a rag and rub clean.

Stainless Steel

Baking soda

White vinegar

Apply baking soda with a damp cloth, using the vinegar to eliminate spots.

BATHROOM
Toilet Bowl

Baking soda

White vinegar

To clean and deodorize, sprinkle toilet bowl with baking soda, add white vinegar and scrub with a toilet brush.

Tub and Tile

1/2 lemon

Borax

Dip the face of the lemon half in borax to create a hand-held scrubber for dirty areas. Rinse and dry the surface afterwards.

KITCHEN

Countertops Marble: Mix one Tbsp castile soap with a quart of warm water, rinse well, then dry with a warm cloth.

Other surfaces: halved lemon dipped in baking soda to scrub off residues. Follow up, by spraying with glass cleaner mix (below).

Dishwashing

castile soap

White vinegar

Wash your dishes in one dishpan filled with a mix of water and castile soap, then rinse in a separate pan containing a mix of water and vinegar (a 3-to-1 water-to-vinegar ratio works well).

Drains

1 cup baking soda

1 cup vinegar

Add baking soda and vinegar to a pot of boiled water and pour down the drain, then flush with tap water.

For more stubborn clogs, use a "snake" plumbing tool to manually remove blockage, or try suction removal with a plunger. To prevent clogs, install inexpensive mesh screen, available at home improvement and hardware stores.

Glass

1/4 cup vinegar or 1 Tbsp lemon juice

2+ cups water

Fill a clean spray bottle with water and either white vinegar or lemon juice; wipe with a rag or old newspaper.

Oven

Baking soda

Water

Sprinkle baking soda on surfaces, spray water, then let soak several hours or overnight. Rinse with water.

Stovetop and Oven Grease Remover

1/2 tsp washing soda

1/4 tsp liquid soap

2 cups hot water Add washing soda and soap to hot water in spray bottle. Since washing soda is caustic, wear gloves.

LAUNDRY ROOM

Laundry Detergent

1 oz. liquid castile soap

1/2 cup washing soda

1/2 cup borax

1/4 cup baking soda or 1/4 cup white vinegar

Using the liquid castile soap as a base, combine with washing soda, borax (for stains and bleaching), and either baking soda (reduces static and softens fabrics) or white vinegar (softens fabrics, reduces static and bleaches clothes). If you feel like your clothes aren't clean enough, play around with the amount of liquid castile soap, using from 1 oz. to 1 cup.

Bleach alternative

1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide

YES!!!!

Province To Give You Incentives To Reuse Plastic Shopping Bags
Wednesday May 9, 2007

You use about four of them a week individually. Ontario residents use about seven million of them daily. They're plastic bags and they're good for lots of things -holding your groceries, carrying your papers and stowing that nasty stuff your dog did in the park. But they're bad for the environment. The sacks don't biodegrade and no one's quite sure just how long they last in landfills. Toronto councillor and environmentalist Gord Perks claims it could be hundreds or even "thousands of years." Which is why the McGuinty government is about to offer you a velvet glove to get you to reduce your dependence on them.

The Liberals are set to announce a program that will see shoppers rewarded with everything from incentives to extra Air Miles points for reusing their existing bags - or putting newly purchased reusable containers to work as they shop. The plan will involve almost every store in the province as a means to get consumers to control the endless use of the plastic carry-alls.

Several places - most notably San Francisco, which banned the bags to big fanfare last March - have restrictions in place. And there are forms of controls in Ireland and one small Manitoba town. Our measures won't be quite as serious as an outright prohibition - yet. But what happens if Ontario residents 'bag' to differ and don't respond to the plea? After a suitable trial period - with a goal to cut the use in half within the next five years - tougher measures could be introduced that will hit you in the wallet to force your compliance.

The city of Toronto has already flirted with imposing a 25-cent levy on each plastic bag you use. And many no-frill-like stores have limited programs in place that charge customers five cents a bag and encourage them to bring their own plastic containers to use again. And almost all sell reusable cloth bags for a small fee.

But in a technologically advanced world, there's a certain irony in what may be yet to come - the possible re-introduction of those old brown paper sacks shoppers once used in the 40s, 50s and 60s, as the need for recycling literally take us back to the future.

"Climate report maps out 'highway to extinction"

Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming.

"A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming with every degree of temperature rise, forecasting that the number of species going extinct will rise with the heat, according to the draft report obtained by The Associated Press".

Click here to read the article.

Earth Day launch re-visited

On Sunday, April 22 (Earth Day!), Arise launched it's impact on Toronto by organizing and participating in a clean-up of the Peace Garden in Regent Park. The Peace Garden was created and planted by Elsaida, who lives in the area, in peaceful retaliation of violence and war in communities. It was surprising to see how much litter was strewn around the garden and the surrounding children's playground; the before and after effect was astonishing and wonderful to see. Many thanks to those who came out! We'll be re-visiting the garden to help Elsaida again soon!

Arise also has a 'zine created by the wonderful and talented ladies Naomi Wilson and Jenna Kess. The 'zine is a fun and creative read that presents information and articles as to what each individual can change about their lifestyle to help save the environment. The next issue will come out sometime in the summer. In the meantime, explore the blog, and if you have any information/articles/thoughts/ideas that you'd like to pass along, you can email them to us at arise.toronto@gmail.com.