Start with the Sponge

Sponges, plastic-based scrubbies, and the plastic packaging they come in are a frequently purchased item that can be gone from your kitchen once and for all. Coupling a dish cloth or felted wool scrubby with baking soda not only does the trick to clean tough spots, it often does it better than any plastic version.

The major ingredient to cleaning the brown spots off your baking dishes comes in recyclable or compostable cardboard. Baking soda. Sixty eight cents a box. This one cleaner is worthy of removing 50 years of brown spots from your grandmother’s corningware making it look new. No need for a single use plastic scrubby pad when you have baking soda! Clean stubborn spots from the stove top to the sink, making everything in your kitchen sparkling. Sprinkle a little baking soda on a wet dish cloth or felted wool and rub. To make it even more effective you can use vinegar, which can be bought in a glass container. Baking soda alone works as an abrasive that removes dirt with little scrubbing, yet is gentle enough that it will not scratch pots, pans, or even windows. When vinegar is added with baking soda a chemical reaction occurs that could be used to build a homemade volcano or get off those stubborn stains and push through the grime.

In fact, baking soda can replace most household cleaning products that are sold in plastic containers.
Read about "50 Clever Ways to Clean with Baking Soda" (courtesy of Taste of Home) for more on this!

Shutterstock / Geo-grafika

The sponge? Sponges are usually the dirtiest thing in the kitchen and are hard to keep clean but you can start each morning with a fresh, dry, clean dish cloth and put it in the hamper at the end of the day. Or you might want to make your own from felted wool!
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While natural sponges may come to mind in replacing plastic sponges, please consider these other alternatives. Natural sponges are living animals and if not overharvested are a renewable resource but natural sponges have an important ecosystem function. They are essential in keeping waters crystal clear so the sun’s rays can penetrate to the bottom of bay’s where seagrass beds provide a nursery ground for sea animals. So instead of having sponges pulled out from the Gulf of Mexico and shipped to your home consider using old wash cloths or wool from a local store, our coral reefs will thank you.

The last time I was in my mother’s kitchen and removed all the brown spots from her baking dishes my sister looked over and asked, “When did you become so domesticated?” I just smiled and thought she can’t wait to try this on her coffee pot.

Joele Emma
GreenWorks Education Director