We clean in an eco-friendly way and decontaminate homes from toxins this May Day

Today we’re sharing our best tips for eco-friendly, toxin-free cleaning at home ahead of May Day. We haven’t made any drastic lifestyle changes; instead, we’ve focused on phasing out plastic and using more natural alternatives. We’ve also eliminated cleaning products that aren’t non-toxic and started using VästerbottensSåpa, a pure product based on the reuse of cooking oil from restaurant deep fryers. 

 

We’re cleaning in an eco-friendly, toxin-free way at home this May Day

 

Toxin-free and eco-friendly cleaning sounds like a major project, a new lifestyle, and a touch of fanaticism, BUT it doesn’t have to be that difficult.
We’re not fanatical in any way here at home, nor have we made any major lifestyle changes—we’ve simply phased things out.

What we’ve thrown out is plastic! We’ve actually reduced our use of plastic and made sure that the children don’t eat or drink from plastic mugs, use plastic cutlery, or eat from plastic plates and bowls. Kitchen utensils such as ladles and spatulas have been replaced with glass, metal, and porcelain. Of course, a glass sometimes breaks, but it can be worth it.
We also try, as far as possible, to buy locally grown, locally produced, and organic food.

It wasn’t that difficult, and it didn’t happen in a day, but now that it’s done, it feels really good. This means we can live with occasionally eating something else when we’re not at home; most of our meals are still eaten at home, and the main thing is that it’s food and not toxins.

 

The next area that has undergone a change is cleaning and housekeeping! Here too, we’ve phased things out and stopped buying cleaning supplies and products that aren’t non-toxic. This happened naturally when we began producing VästerbottensSåpa. The more we’ve learned about chemicals and cleaning products, the more skeptical we’ve become of glossy spray bottles and strong fragrances.

VästerbottensSåpa, which is based on a reuse system in which we purify cooking oil from restaurant deep fryers and saponify it into soap, is a very pure product. The raw material—the base of the product—is food-grade; corn and rapeseed oil are certainly not dirty industrial waste.
Now half of you are saying that you’ve worked at a grill restaurant and that it’s disgusting! (If I’d had a five-krona coin for every time I’d heard that?!)

Here’s how it works!
1 . We don’t empty everything imaginable into one large barrel!
– The restaurants pour the oil back into the container it came in through a fine strainer! We take care of it fairly quickly and then purify it at our factory—Såperiet in Siksjönäs.

2. If you’ve worked at a grill restaurant, have you seen the tall oil used to make pine soap?
– No, exactly! It’s a brown-black, viscous sludge left over in paper mills—and yes, it smells like a paper mill too!
It also has to be purified before being saponified, but both resin and sulfur remain in it, and these also end up in the soap.

3. What happens to fat from deep fryers that isn’t taken care of by VästerbottensSåpa?
-Well, it’s transported long distances to be processed or burned.

By reusing it, we not only get a pure product but also do the environment a favor.

 

 

Back to the soap! By cleaning everything—yes, absolutely everything—at home with VästerbottensSåpa, we can also be completely sure that it actually gets CLEAN rather than being “coated” with chemicals. We’ve also replaced all our brooms, dish brushes, cloths, and scouring sponges with organic, handmade alternatives. Today we brought out the garden furniture. There’s still a lot of snow, but one small snow-free patch and sunshine, sunshine, sunshine made it feel like a good idea anyway!

 

 

Wood becomes both clean and replenished with oil from VästerbottensSåpa, which is a superfat soap (like linseed oil soap), and after a winter in storage, that was much needed! Once the garden furniture was clean and smelled of soap, it was time for the first outdoor coffee break of the year!

 

 

 

Wonderful—and enough renewed energy to start shoveling out the vegetable garden 😉

Have a continued pleasant May Day, everyone!

// Sara Idenfors

 

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Questions and Answers

 

- What have you phased out to make cleaning more eco-friendly?
We’ve phased out plastic and replaced it with glass, metal, and porcelain, particularly when it comes to the children’s tableware and kitchen utensils. In addition, we’ve stopped buying cleaning supplies and products that aren’t non-toxic.

 

- What is VästerbottensSåpa, and why do you use it for cleaning?
VästerbottensSåpa is a superfat soap based on recycled cooking oil from restaurant deep fryers. We use it because it is a pure product and contains no harmful chemicals.

 

- How does the reuse system for cooking oil from restaurant deep fryers work?
The restaurants pour the cooking oil back into containers through a fine strainer, after which it is purified and saponified into soap at our factory—Såperiet in Siksjönäs.

 

- How do you clean wooden garden furniture with VästerbottensSåpa?
We clean the wooden garden furniture with VästerbottensSåpa, which both cleans and replenishes the wood’s oils. This is particularly beneficial after winter storage.

 

- What is your next step after cleaning and restoring the garden furniture?
After cleaning the garden furniture, we feel ready to start shoveling out the vegetable garden and enjoy the first outdoor coffee break of the year.