Eco-Friendly Carpet Cleaning
Eco-Friendly Carpet Cleaning
Children are rough on everything in your home. They scratch up the furniture, leave marks on the wall and put stains on the carpet. You want your home to be clean and look nice, but you don’t want to harm your children with fumes from cleaning supplies.
Carpets should be professionally cleaned often in order to remain spot-free and durable. But using traditional carpet cleaners with chemicals can do more harm than good. Fabric and carpet stain repellents or “guards” may have plastics and other potentially dangerous ingredients. Carpet shampoos normally leave a sticky residue on carpet fibers. It’s hard to see or feel but the residue might give the carpet a rough surface. You also may be able to smell this residue. Since it attracts and sticks to dirt, children can inhale these residues and get them on their hands. While playing and crawling on the carpet, a child’s hands become covered in the chemical residue. Young children always put their hands into their mouths so they also then get the residue into their bodies through their hands.
Along with shampoo residue, dry shampoos, powders and foams may also stay behind on carpet fibers. These products normally use detergents that must be absorbed for a specific period of time and then vacuumed to remove. As a result, a residue may be left behind or the product may sink deep enough into carpets that it can’t be sucked out. Also asthma attacks can be brought on by powders or dusts that are easily inhaled and irritate airways.
The medical community and carpet cleaning industry are at odds when discussing how carpet plays a role in indoor air quality. Medical professionals still claim that carpet causes more problems in homes and buildings than any other floor surface. So if the dust, dirt and stains in carpet can cause health issues, shouldn’t you be as concerned about how you clean your carpet? Many methods use water as the main ingredient to extract stains from the carpet. In addition to being non-toxic, this method has the green benefits of conserving water, reducing mold and mildew growth, being made from renewable resources, reducing allergens such as cat dander and dust mites, not being composted and not burdening water treatment facilities with wastewater. So there is a way to let your kids be kids while ensuring their safety, having clean carpets and helping the environment stay strong.