What Chemicals Are Under Your Kitchen Sink

Many of us have a catchall space under the kitchen sink, with a lot of bottles, toxic cleansers, and rusty old spray cans jumbled together with the funky garbage bags and crushed up against shiny silver water piping from the sink or garbage disposal.

We may ordinarily not pay much attention to what’s under our kitchen sink until there’s some kind of sudden demand for these old cans and cleansers, but there are very good reasons why we should reconsider what’s stored down there and how we use it.

Household Cleansers

Many household cleansers that you may also store under your kitchen sink (with child-guard locks!) bear a warning label alerting you to one of the three federal safety ratings: (1) “Caution,” (2) “Warning,” or (3) “Danger.” These labels are necessary because the products contain toxic ingredients, often including such volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as formaldehyde and harsh acids that we all know are not ingredients we want in our green homes.

In general, I recommend choosing cleaning products that don’t require any such labeling. If a cleanser is not good for you and at its most acceptable level requires “caution,” it is probably not good for others or for the environment either. Instead, as your household cleansers need replacement, switch to simple, green cleansers that are safer for you and your family and also reduce the environmental harm caused by the manufacture, use, and disposal of nongreen products.

You have choices here. You can make your own cleansers with readily available ingredients (most of which are probably already in your kitchen cabinet), or you can buy products that are healthier and environmentally responsible alternatives. Many of these are 100 percent biodegradable and do not contain the unnecessary ingredients found in conventional cleansers, such as artificial fragrances, antimicrobials, chlorine, coal dyes, or phosphates.

Homemade Cleansers

Here is a list of basic ingredients that are great cleansers themselves and from which you can make cleansing formulas for almost any household need:

Baking soda eliminates odors and softens water; can also be used as a scouring powder in the bathroom. To clean your oven with baking soda, sprinkle it on the oven floor and spray with water until damp; let set overnight; scrub clean in the morning.

Castile soap cuts grease, disinfects, and makes a great all-purpose cleaner; “castile” means that it is a vegetable-based rather than animal-based soap.

Club soda removes stains; polishes. Put it in a spray bottle and clean—great on windows!

Cornstarch cleans windows and picks up spills on carpets (especially good on acidic spills from juice, coffee, and wine).

Lemon juice bleaches, deodorizes, cuts grease, and removes stains.

Olive oil polishes furniture.

White vinegar kills bacteria; cuts grease, odors, and wax buildup; removes mildew; also dissolves hard water lime buildup on the inside of teapots—add four ounces of vinegar to a pot of water and boil, then rinse well.

find out where you can learn more about alternative cleaning products