Is your home a healthy, environmentally sustainable home? Find out our tips as to how you can achieve this.
Image Instagram
Junk & Disorderly 164 Balmoral Road, Mount Eden, Auckland
Upcycle furniture
Rather than purchasing new furniture, consider upcycling the old, or better still buy second hand. There are some amazing thrift and vintage stores including charity stores to hunt out and purchase pre-loved furniture. Not only is this a great way to save money, it’s fun finding those gems. You can pick up some absolute treasures, add a coat of paint, and they will become a unique centerpiece to add to any room.
Eco paint
Resene has an extensive range of Environmental Choice approved paints that have been independently verified. They have no added VOCs, (volatile organic compounds that become toxic vapors or gases derived from gasoline, wood, and coal) as well as a range of low VOC products. Learn more about how eco paint can improve the environment in your home at Resene ColorShops.
Image Resene
The Laundry
Consider what you wash down your drain from shampoo to laundry powder. This is a small step to ensure our waterways and oceans are clean and free from toxic substances. One way to clean your clothes washing and protect the planet is to use The Laundry Egg. This little egg is packed with unique, natural and powerful cleaning pellets, which activate in the water to clean your clothing, bed linen and towels. The pellets are scientifically proven to gently lift away dirt and grime without the need of any detergent, washing powders, liquids, gels or tablets.
Simple and easy to use, just pop this egg in with each load, ideal for white and coloured clothes, and safe on your delicates it will clean and deodorise your laundry. Each egg last 54 washes, and comes in a range of scents including soft cotton, spring blossom, as well as fragrance-free.
The Laundry Egg from $54 – $95, replacement pellets are available.
Go green
Over winter we can spend up to 90 percent of our time indoors, so the air quality in your home is worth purifying. The most effective and affordable way to cleanse those yucky odors we are breathing comes from Mother Nature - healthy, green indoor plants. One plant that produces the most oxygen is the spider plant, it purifies the air in your home (or office) by absorbing carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and xylene. Other plants that have a positive affect on your environment are dracaenas, the ficus or weeping fig, the peace lily plant, Boston ferns, and the snake plant or mother-in-law’s tongue - most garden centres have a range of indoor plants on offer.
Organic bedding
Can you rest easy knowing you’re sleeping in 100 percent certified organic cotton? Cheap cotton or rayon sheets are manufactured with more chemicals than conscience, and it’s impossible to get transparency in the supply chain when choosing cheap bedding. Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is one body that regulates eco fabric, and the making of linen. To ensure your skin is wrapped in affordable, sustainable fabric buy organic.
This is a good step toward ensuring your linen has not been grown or produced using insecticides or toxins.
Wallace Cotton Ticking Stripe sheet set from $180.
Ditch the plastic
If you haven’t already, ditch old school plastic and invest in glass. Our biggest bugbear, is cling film or Glad Wrap. This is a single-use plastic product that ends up in landfills and in our oceans, where it causing harm to our fish life and the environment. Invest in Honey Wraps, or greaseproof paper for wrapping lunches, and pack your pantry with glass containers for storing your staples.
Weck Cylinder Glass jars with glass lids, from $1 each from Father Rabbit.
Bath and cleaning products
We are conscious of what we wash down our drains, so check the ingredient lists on your shampoo, dishwashing liquid and body wash products. Never buy products that contain parabens, synthetic fragrance, and sulfates (foaming agents), these are a no, no and for good reason. Not only are they bad for the environment, they also increase the toxic overload in our bodies. Our skin is our largest organ, and a visual barometer of our general health and wellbeing, check these basic buys at the supermarket, and make sure they are as clean as they can be.
Eco Store bubble bath, from $10, dish liquid, from $5, and body wash, from $8.
