sustainable midwest
An attempt to pass on info that we come across promoting a healthier, more sustainable way of living.Archive for October, 2007
healthier pest control
Pest control products are some of the most harmful substances we produce these days – they’re packed with potent toxins and we use & come into contact with them often in everyday life.
For cockroaches: sprinkle borax + sugar mix near cracks or openings where they may be entering the house.
For ants, sprinkle any of the following: talc, cayenne pepper, paprika, damp coffee grounds, charcoal, chalk or lemon juice w/pieces of the rind included.
For trapping flies, coat thick paper or thin cardboard with honey.
Keep flies away with pots of mint or basil.
Have fruit flies? leave out small dishes with vinegar. It will attract & drown them.
Got mice? Block your mouse holes with steel wool or soak cotton balls with peppermint extract and place them around the house.
Slugs in your yard? Set out open cans of beer. My mother and grandmother would dig a hole for the cans and plant them among the flowers so they’d be inconspicuous. Replace as needed.
* Most adapted from Jackie Craven’s book, the Healthy Home.
healthier cleaning
Here are just a few great cleaning tips that don’t involve harsh chemicals. Stock up on that baking soda and vinegar!
All purpose cleaner substitute: mix salt + vinegar and use in spray bottle. 4 tsp baking soda disolved in 1 qt water also works well.
Kill bacteria in trash cans and elsewhere by sprinkling Borax – 1/3 to 1/2 c
Need a good oil cleaner for wood furniture and other wood surfaces? Try mixing vengar with olive oil.
For wood floors, polish w/mixture of equal parts baby oil + vinegar.
Clearing drains of clogs if the plunger doesn’t do it all: pour 1-2 c baking soda followed by 1/2 c white vinegar and cover tightly for 1 minute. Rinse thoroughly with hot water. Repeat 30 minutes later if it’s a super tough clog.
For laundry, return to the old days – try using Borax in lieu of chemical-laden detergents. Even though these days, borax is advertised as a laundry booster, it’s really a great naturally occurring detergent. (you can treat horses suffering from thrush in their hooves, too)
The multiple uses of Borax…
* Borax is also great for cleaning out refrigerators – especially stinky ones.
* You can also use it prevent water in humidifiers from smelling bad. Just dissolve 1 tsp of borax for each gallon of water.
* Got a kid that wets the bed? Get rid of urine odors by dampening the area, sprinkling borax and rubbing it in. Once dry, vacuum the dry borax away and that’s it.
* Use it to clean & deodorize bathroom surfaces.
Air freshener: Add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves or vanilla in a pot of simmering water.
Clean, streak-free glass/windows: 2+ T of vinegar with 1 qt water. Add cornstarch to combat streaking.
Clean your sinks: Scour with baiking soda (2T per 1 pt warm water). Add lemon juice or vinegar if you don’t have lemon juice to cut through grease.
Disinfectant: Using two spray bottles, spritz area w/white vinegar. Then mist area w/3% hydrogen peroxide. Rinse w/water and you’re done.
Linoleum floors: 1c white vinegar + 1 gal water+ cap full of baby oil. Don’t add the baby oil for brick or stone floor cleaning.
* most of these adapted from The Healthy Home by Jackie Craven.
Green Power Option from Indianapolis Power & Light
Sorry, since I’m living in Indianapolis, there will be times where my posts will be Indy-centric.
That being said, I know many people already know this, but I wanted to go ahead and post some quick info about Indianapolis Power & Light’s Green Power Option for Renewable Energy. You can specify how much of your power you’d like to receive from clean, renewable energy sources – 100%, 50%, 25% or 10%. Cost is only $0.001913 per kilowatt-hour. Not even half a penny per kilowatt-hour. To give you some perspective, if your power bill is typically $50/mo, for 10% green you’d only pay an additional 16¢; for 25% green, only an additional 39¢; for 50% green an additional 78¢; and for 100% renewable power, you’d only be paying an additional $1.56. That’s not bad for doing a lot to reduce your carbon imprint! Check out the IPALCO Green Power Option for Renewable Energy web page that offers details along with links to enrollment, FAQs and a Cost Estimator.
first posts…
Are always the most awkward. So, the reason for starting this blog is to consolidate the information and notes I commonly refer to that are all piled on scrap pieces of paper, random magazine and newspaper tear-outs, etc. After having just moved back to the Midwest from Atlanta, I became pretty frustrated with how hard it was to get information about recycling and other resources up here. All the information seemed scattered or incomplete. Not that I’m going to be a master at offering complete info, but I’m hoping to at least offer more than a bunch of links – half of which may or may not work on any given day and most likely don’t offer pertinent info such as hours of operation. Run on sentences. Get used to them. I’m not much of a writer. Then again, this is mostly to become a compilation – not prose.
