Hi all,
I could do with a bit of advice!
We’ve recently moved into our new house, that has as of last week had it’s kitchen and bathroom installed.
Our house Isn’t hooked up to the grid for Greywater, but has an IMHOF tank that needs emptying every now and then. The overflow of the tank drains into the creek that runs trough our garden. The
water of our creek so far is pristine and teeming with healthy life. Obviously we want to keep it that way. So now that we’ve moved into our home, I’ve been looking into what cleaning products I can use both for our personal care as for cleaning dishes/ bathrooms/laundry etc.
I know soda and vinegar are good bases for ecological cleaning, but we have a limiting factor to take into account: both our kitchen top and
shower are fitted with marble aggregate made by a
local craftsman (it is a traditional technique here) He told us to avoid acidic or highly alkaline products on these surfaces as it eats away at the marble surface, but to use PH neutral cleaning products. So that completely rules out both soda and vinegar, lemon juice, homemade soap,...
It sounds logical at the same time that PH neutral products might be better for the life in our creek as well, as I can imagine that, eventhough vinegar and soda are natural products, I Wouldn’t want to be pouring it in the creek either. As a I understand it, the natural PH of water is 7, so neutral. So PH neutral products would appear to be both beneficial for the natural balance of the water, and the marble tops and flooring in the house. But when researching PH neutral cleaning products I come across so many conflicting opinions about it (some saying that the other ingredients found in ph-neutral soaps are even more detrimental, others saying it’s bad for your skin,...). I read that although soaps have the bio-degradable stamp on it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful for the environment, and most importantly polluting the water. Several sites recommend using biodegradable soaps at least 200 feet away from waterways so it doesn’t contaminate it. And even then, when left in the soil it can take years to break down.
At the end of my research, the only truly non-harmful way I found to use soap was to use no soap at all...
My internet search left me frustrated and confused, reading so many conflicting information. So I turn to you wise folks in the hope to make some more sense of it:
What kind of products, if any, would you recommend for personal care and home care, that don’t pollute water (or minimally so), and that ideally can be used on sensitive natural surfaces like terracotta, marble and
wood.
Thank you kindly!
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