Home sweet home. It is where we find sanctuary after a long day. It is where we are safe. Right? Wrong!

It is now known that indoor air quality is worse than outdoor air quality, sometimes even 100 times worse! In fact the US EPA now ranks poor indoor air quality among the top five environmental risks to public health. While much attention is paid to outdoor air pollution, it is found that we spend the vast majority of our time indoors, about 87%.

What causes this? The primary cause of indoor air quality problems in homes are gases or particles that are released into the air. Complicated by the fact that most homes are with inadequate ventilation. Since there is not bringing in enough outdoor air being brought into the home, there is not enough fresh air to dilute emissions from indoor sources and the indoor air pollutants are not carried out of the home. (In climates with high temperature and humidity levels the concentrations of some pollutants are further increased.) There are many sources of indoor air pollution, including the household cleaning products. This situation is further exacerbated because of the prevalence of conventional petroleum-based cleaning products and how we have learned to use them.

Another reason to care when protecting your family is by eliminating poison sources. The American Association of Poison Control has identified that 89% of all poison exposures occur in the home. Furthermore, household substances, including cleaning products, are the second most common reason for pediatric exposure to poisons.

Using green cleaning techniques will make a difference, especially in enhancing the health of your family. Here are five inexpensive green cleaning tips that are easy to implement today.

(1) Focus on Cleaning, Not on Disinfecting

Are you one of the majority in our country that believes if it is disinfected that it is clean? Unfortunately disinfectants not effective cleaners because they are not designed to be. If we focus on cleaning and ensuring there is no residue remaining to harbor the bad bacteria, we will find that we have achieved our objective, to have a clean surface.

Did you know that disinfectants are effectively pesticides? Think about it, they are designed to kill everything in its path, kind of like the Round Up we use in our yards for weed killing. As a green cleaner, remember hot, soapy water is extremely effective in killing food-borne pathogens such as salmonella or E coli... and you are not contributing to the new strain of super bugs that will plague us in the future.

(2) Seek Sustainability Oriented Solutions

Our world is a wasteful one - just look at the amount of excessive packaging associated with nearly everything we purchase. It seems that more and more products are not designed to be repaired, but rather to be replaced. Because of this there is an ongoing drive to be more sustainable in our practices. As a green cleaner there are many things you can do to decrease your waste, such as avoid disposable cleaning accessories, minimizing the single use items, e.g., those omnipresent Wipes that are now available for all applications, seeking highly concentrated products designed to be mixed in reusable spray bottles, and using microfiber cloths.

(3) Use Microfiber

There are many aspects to green cleaning that differs from the traditional cleaning methods that we were taught by our mothers, grandmothers, even our Home Economics teachers! The introduction of a high quality microfiber cloth is one the most significant and powerful breakthroughs for the green cleaner.

Microfiber cloths work differently in cleaning than the traditional cotton rags. Each microfiber in a cloth has a system of hook like claws that will snare dirt and dust, as well as pollen and other allergy producing particles that are common in homes. The micro-fibers act like a scraper while they lift and trap the dirt and moisture in the nooks and crannies of the individual fibers rather than just pushing the dirt from one point to another as the traditional cotton fiber does. At the end of a swipe with the cleaning cloth, rather than trying to manually lift the dirt as is done with a traditional cotton rag, the microfiber will store the dirt within the cloth until it is washed. Even better since a high quality microfiber can be washed as many as 500 times, it is a very sustainable product. Today, microfiber is required for any green cleaner.

(4) Know Your Cleaning Products

The vast majority of cleaning products are petroleum-based. These traditional cleaners can be dangerous to use and can greatly affect indoor air quality with irritating fumes, harsh acids and alkalis, glycol ethers, particulates, petroleum distillates, and even carcinogens. Let me be clear, these are toxic and do not contribute to the health of your family!

It is important for the green cleaner to seek the greenest solution available. Look for products that are bio based and from renewable resources, have no heavy metals, low in volatile organic compounds (VOC), are free of carcinogens (including formaldehyde and styrene), pH neutral. Even better if you are using a product that has received a 3rd party certification from EPA Design for the Environment (DfE), Green Seal, and/or EcoLogo.

Although many choose to make their own cleaning products this can be a time-consuming, inexact science with unsatisfactory results due to their low efficacy.

(5) Clean with Indoor Plants

One of the easiest, and most effective techniques for the green cleaner, is to decorate with live plants. They have been found to reduce indoor air pollution, as well as providing more oxygen.