One home improvement project that is taken for granted most of the time is a good inside and out cleaning of your home. For some reason we think of cleaning as a time intensive and monetarily expensive endeavor. The truth is that it doesn’t have to be. The quality of your home can be made better by using green methods of cleaning, and it won’t cost you as much either. Cleaning can be damaging to anything, because regular cleaners have chemicals that are not good. You need to be careful breathing when you are around chemical-based cleaners, because their emissions are dangerous. Improving things will be easy when you use the following green cleaning tips.

Are paper towels still something you use? Stop doing it! If you were thinking about the environment, you would know how bad paper towels are. You could spend the money elsewhere. Washcloths can clean up your messes as good as paper towels can. Your money can be spent on something else. There is plenty of old clothing in your closet that can be used to make them, even old t-shirts.

Any time they get too dirty or start to smell, rinse them out and wash them with your regular laundry. Not only is this a good way to reduce expenses on the household budget, but it will eliminate a lot of trash.

Another way to improve your home environmentally is to replace existing paint with non-VOC paint, this is a very innovative alternative if you have some painting project like basement wall finishing, for instance. Volatile Organic Compounds is what the acronym VOC stands for. These are compounds that form vapors at room temperatures and can contribute quite a bit to indoor air pollution. And it doesn’t stop there! You indoor pollution will go outside, into the air in your neighborhood, causing it to be less breathable than ever before. This risk is now limited due to low VOC limitations for paint that is manufactured today. And, as an addendum, you should also be aware that some paint uses additional toxic chemicals when manufactured. Brand names such as Benjamin Moore and Dutch Boy make very trustworthy types of paint.

Add some literal greenery to your home by adding a few houseplants. You will brighten up the environment by adding houseplants, but it does more than that. The air gets really dirty, but plants can keep it clean. Some people use fake plants made out of rubber, which don’t do much good, but an actual rubber plant will, along with English Ivy, peace lilies and spider plants, because of their cleansing properties. These plants are miracle workers by exchanging toxins in the air, and giving off oxygen instead. For an 1800 square foot house you’ll want at least a dozen though a dozen and a half would be better. This way you won’t have to spend a bunch of money on environmentally poor air purifiers and filters for your home.

Before you can take on any bigger home improvement projects, you are going to need to clean the area in question. If harsh chemical cleaners cleaned better than environmentally friendly ones, or were a lot cheaper, you might understand why people would use them, but they aren’t better or cheaper. A good place to start has been with these tips. As long as you are willing to look, you can find plenty of helpful hints.