Who knew how much you could do with white vinegar and baking soda? If you are like me, you have an accumulation of various cleaning supplies clustered under your kitchen sink. My place always needs cleaning, so I have tried many products over the years. I now want to use green cleaning materials so that my ordinary household dirt does not turn into toxic sludge. I tried out a few ideas from some of the many great books that are out there about going green and clean in your home.
The first book that caught my eye was The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Cleaning by Mary Findlay and Linda Formichelli. I like the way the book is arranged into easy sections: getting clutter under control, cleaning room by room and then the extra stuff such as cars, gutters and laundry. Most of the nontoxic cleaners involve white vinegar, baking soda and laundry detergent–nothing too exotic! Even an idiot can do it!
I also tried out Clean Home, Green Home by Kimberly Delaney. This book educates you about the toxic cleaning ingredients to avoid and shows you many of the easy to obtain substitutes. Guess what ingredients come up again? I tried the vinegar, baking soda and borax solution with great success in my now clean (formerly dirty) shower. The green cleaning solution even worked on a tarnished copper pot. 
Check out a list of Non-Toxic Cleaning resources and books available through the Library catalog to help you learn more about this subject.
This month The Seattle Public Library is hosting many Urban Self-Reliance programs. There will be three workshops offered in October at different library branches on the subject of green cleaning called “We’ve Gotta Be Clean (Non-Toxic Home Cleaners):”
Thursday, Oct. 11, 6to 7:30 p.m., Broadview Branch
Saturday, Oct. 13, 1 to 2:30 p.m., Capitol Hill Branch
Saturday, Oct. 20, 2 to 3:30 p.m., Delridge Branch
I can honestly say my house is now cleaner and greener and I did not add to the collection of cleaners under the sink!
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