Day 213 of our Green Year: Washing Floors In A Green Way

At the ranch, there are no carpets. Therefore, we have no need to vacuum floors, but we do have to clean a lot of floors. Cleaning floors is a big source of chemicals in the house, with some floor cleaners being heavy in the chemical soup. As a result, a good way to go green is to clean floors in a green way, and to be smart with your floors.

In our home, we are practicing these smart floor maintenance steps to keep us from having to wash floors too often and waste our specially made cleaning supplies.

First, there are doormats placed at the entrances that are there to help keep dirt at the door mats, which can easily be beaten outside to get the dirt off.
Second, and this was discussed three days ago, we take our shoes off every time we come in to keep our floors from getting too dirty.

However, the floors will eventually get dirty, and therefore to keep with going green, we will not be using any floor cleaners with harsh chemicals in them. We will also not be waxing or polishing the floors because waxes and polish products can have a lot of harmful chemicals in them.

There will be no way in hell we will use a disposable mop like Swiffer Sweeper, and instead of a regular mop, we will be using a cloth and vinegar cleaner on the floor. We have to get down on our hands and knees to do this, but it is better than using disposable products. We debated whether or not we wanted to use a reusable mop or cloth, and decided since there was no reusable mop here, there was no need to purchase one when we had plenty of cloths to clean the floor.

--
A report by the National Intelligence Council has painted a disturbing picture of the future if global warming continues. Their report, which looks at how things will be in the year 2025, says that Russia and Canada will have large and strong economies because the growing season will increase and there will be more access to northern oil fields. However, it is expected that Russia will be suffering from huge amounts of organized crime, which will spread out to Eastern and Central European countries.

Africa and South Asia will become unstable and the regimes there will collapse as water and food shortages get worse with climate change and an increase in population of 1.4 billion. As well, the potential for a world wide conflict will be very high because of a larger world population, declining resources and greater food and water scarcity.

If this report is accurate, and it can be hard to say if it will be, that disturbing future is only 17 years away.