Baking Soda for Cleaning and Other Home UsesHave you tried baking soda for cleaning yet? It's another great easy way to green up your household cleaning routines. Here's why you should use baking soda for cleaningBaking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, is a another great natural cleaning agent. It has great qualities as a scouring powder and is particularly good for deodorising sinks and garments. So why not try baking soda for cleaning around your home? It's very straightforward and safe. Here are some details.
Natron is a mixture of bicarb (about 17%) and soda ash, (hydrated sodium carbonate), common salt and small quantities of other chemical salts. Natron is deposited in salty lakes in dry parts of the world. The ancient Egyptians used it for many common tasks, from brushing teeth to mummification of the dead. Blended with oil, it was used as a kind of body soap. It has many other useful cleaning properties from softening water to removing oil, grease and alcohol stains. It has been superseded by modern, factory produced sodium bicarbonate. What is the chemical formula for baking soda?The main active ingredient in baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) has a relatively simple chemical formula: NaHCO3. It is, therefore, a chemical, but a relatively harmless one.
Use it as a deodoriser in the fridge. Sprinkle a little onto a plate and leave it for half an hour, or use it as above for swabbing the surfaces of the fridge after cleaning. Sinks and drainsTo clean clogged sinks tip about a cupful of baking soda down the plug hole and follow up with neat vinegar. Use baking soda to clean grout. It works at least as well as the commercial products I've used for this job. Use a toothbrush or similar small brush to apply it and scrub. Just wash off with water afterwards. It can also be used to clean metalwork - the Statue of Liberty was cleaned using sodium bicarbonate.
You can easily buy small quantities in any supermarket as its used in bakery products. However, if you want to use it in your regular cleaning programme you are likely to want it in greater quantities. You can get it from Amazon Baking soda is not yet sold in many supermarkets as a cleaning product but some health food shops are beginning to stock it in the UK. Suma Wholefoods stock it and many food co-ops and the like obtain their supplies from them. It should become more widely available as more people ask for it as a cleaning product.
There are many other baking soda uses. Here are some of the most important uses for baking soda with respect to green living.
There are also many other baking soda uses in medicine and emergency procedures which are beyond the scope of this article. Add your green cleaning tip(s)
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in large enough quantities for cleaning.
