I have recently made the discovery of microfiber cloths--and they are amazing! They seem flimsy, so I never paid them much mind, but they are a great advance in home cleaning--no doubt about it! The key to them is that the fibers are constructed specifically to hold dirt and microbes so that wiping a surface with them leaves the surface virtually free of said contaminants. A cleaning expert who I trust told me that he tested them against cotton cloths: cotton cloths clean about 30% of the microbes from a surface. A good quality microfiber cloth cleans 99%! And that is with just water.

Yes, they exist. I just sort of assumed that batteries were batteries, i.e. the whole concept of a battery is the rare creation of electricity out of certain materials and, traditionally, those materials happened to be toxic (lead and acid). But it turns out that other materials that aren't toxic can also produce electricity. Potatoes, for example. But I wouldn't try to power your alarm clock with a potato. A better idea is the new purportedly green concept of phosphate and lithium in a battery. They're rechargeable too. http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/Non-Toxic-Rechargeable-Battery-can-replace-lead-acid-batteries-20018952

You don't need to use caustic chemicals to clean your drain. This article gives you recipes using simple ingredients like baking soda, vinegar, and borax to do the trick. With more difficult problems further instructions are given. www.mnn.com/your-home/at-home/stories/care-for-your-drain-the-natural-way

In a test by the Association of Residential Cleaning Services International, it was found that the most effective general cleaner was...

__ detergent
__ soap
__ lemon juice
__ vinegar
__ other

What do you think?

The answer: water. More specifically deionized water, of which the distilled water that you can buy at the grocery store for a buck a gallon is a closely-related useable alternative.

Cleaning is more than merely a shiny, dirt-free appearance. It is also hygiene: i.e. a contribution to health through reducing the number of harmful microbes in the home environment. But is it really?

With the growth of antibiotics after World War II attitudes toward hygiene slackened since antibiotics had dramatically reduced the risk of infection. But with the evolution of new pathogens in recent years, some quite serious, there has been renewed attention to the issue of hygienic home cleaning.

The International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene, a consortium of public health scientists that has investigated the issue, believes that with changes in the microbe environment as well as certain lifestyle changes, attention to hygiene is now warranted. The most important activity they recommend is hand washing. But hygienic cleaning of surfaces that we are in most contact with is also an aid to a more infection-resistant home.

This is not, by the way, an all out endorsement by the scientific community for using disinfectants in the home. In fact, these scientists have shown an admirably nuanced awareness of the problems that disinfectants introduce into our environment. More on that in another post.

see "Why is home hygiene important? -- Hygiene-related disease in the home and community" on the ISFHH website. You can Google it.