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This article is part of a Teja on the Horizon Circular Living series, which is about my experience transitioning to a more circular, low-waste life. This article describes my experience trying my best to apply zero waste principles to household cleaning while living in an apartment in the big city.
For why a zero waste & circular lifestyle is important, watch the video below.
Where relevant, I include feedback from my friends, to give a sense for alternative choices people might make, and why. Obviously, people are different and live different lives. I think zero waste solutions advice need to consider this range, rather than assuming everybody should live the same way in order to become sustainable.
On the other hand, having the ability to go against the current linear mass consumerism and experiment with changes, does require a minimum quality of life. When you’re living in poverty, you have to take the options you can afford. So, the articles in this series will likely be more relevant to middle class people and above.
Additionally, I am based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Consequently, the options and financial comparisons provided in these articles will reflect value calculations that are true for Kuala Lumpur; a different result may be true for your location. I welcome comments that describe how the choices would be different at your location.
Evolution of household cleaning context
The ubiquitous ‘cleaning products’ that we think of when we think about cleaning the house, didn’t exist before industrial manufacturing. Here, people shifted from mainly just sweeping the floor and wiping dust from surfaces, and scrubbing the bathroom (if it was even indoors), to using chemical cleaners on more durable surfaces, in homes that are increasingly better sealed against outside.
In the middle of the 20th century, an almost germaphobic ‘clean obsession’ was the popular aspiration for home cleaning. An even greater variety of commercial cleaners was invented, and buying them from the store became the default for household cleaning.
However, in the later part of the 20th century, there emerged the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, which questioned whether being too devoted to disinfecting the house may lead to increased allergen sensitivity in children. While the reality is probably more nuanced than the popular understanding, it does suggest that being clean without being obsessed with bleaching everything is probably better overall. This was also the beginning of public awareness of chemical pollution in the environment. So began the counter-culture trend towards eco-friendly household cleaning products.
Nowadays, materials for floors and countertops and bathroom fittings are made of new materials, or finished differently. Arguably, they don’t get as easily dirty anymore, or at least they are easier to clean. Giving up modern chemical formulations may not even necessarily result in more cleaning effort anymore. So why not try cleaning methods that could be zero waste?
Options for zero waste general household cleaners
Household cleaners create plastic waste mainly due to the plastic bottles they come in. Refills are a common zero waste solution. In addition, many zero waste households are also into natural cleaning solutions. They seek to find natural alternatives to store-bought chemical cleaners. Nowadays, you can find variations of DIY cleaning recipes online using common household items, for a variety of cleaning purposes. The items you need are not too different from those for doing the laundry.
Generally, for most general cleaning, you are just diluting an acid such as vinegar. To clean actually dirty surfaces, you would add a surfactant such as detergent. (Or just the surfactant alone would be enough, actually.) You might add essential oils for a germ-busting boost and for a nice smell. And if you want to make a paste for cleaning grease or to deal with mildew, a common household deodorising alkali would be baking soda.
One caveat for DIY solutions is to not overdo the acid when cleaning porous surfaces like tiles. I tried cleaning my bathroom shower tiles with a vinegar solution for a while. At first it was fine, but after a while the glazing over the tile degraded and the tiles became porous. And now I have to clean it much more often to keep the mildew off. At some point I probably have to get the shower re-tiled.
Unless you feel strongly about avoiding store-bought chemical cleaners, if you’re careless like me, you could consider just buying the same kind of cleaning solutions you’d buy in a store, except as refills at a zero waste store.
1. Vinegar refills
White vinegar is now one of my zero waste mainstays. It is my main household cleaning solution for regular general cleaning. It is also an ingredient for unblocking drain pipes – but more on that below.
Nowadays, I go to MINIMIZE Zero Waste store, as they have a wider range of zero waste products. (Also, because The Hive closed their physical stores. I’ll update previous article references and price comparisons by and by.) At MINIMIZE, food grade vinegar is RM7 per kg. This could be about twice as expensive as the cheapest bulk vinegar at the supermarket. But depending on the chemical cleaner you choose, it’s either just a bit more expensive, or on par with general multipurpose kitchen or floor cleaners.
Although vinegar itself has a mild disinfecting effect, you can improve it further. One option is to add essential oils. You can also get essential oils as refills at MINIMIZE at between RM2.5-RM4.7 per gram depending on the oil.
If you just want a bit of scent, you can also steep kitchen ingredients in the vinegar before making the cleaning solution. In my opinion, it isn’t as strong as using essential oils. On the other hand, I have the lemon or lime peels anyway. Sometimes I might also use cloves or leftover rosemary – it depends on what aromatics you have lying around.
2. Baking soda refills
Baking soda is the other regular item I use (although not to its full potential – I could be doing more scrubbing!). It is used to remove stains, as well as to deodorise. This versatility makes it useful for cleaning in the kitchen, the bathroom, carpets and shoes, and in the laundry. In hindsight, baking soda is generally a more suitable option to clean the bathroom rather than the vinegar solution.
Baking soda is RM6 per kg at MINIMIZE. Buying it packaged costs between RM8-15 per kg, which is actually more expensive. It is also about 3-10x cheaper than purposely made cleaning pastes at the supermarket. The latter could have better performance against heavier stains, but most of the time you don’t need it, so you can save some money by using the expensive ones only when needed.
3. Detergent refills
I also often just use a detergent solution to clean the bathroom. Detergent can also be combined with vinegar solution, or mixed with baking soda, depending on what you’re cleaning (see above). Regular dishwashing detergent will do. Zero waste refills of detergent is only a little bit more expensive than at the supermarket. For more details, see my zero waste dishwashing article.
4. Cleaner solution refills
Finally, you can also still get more or less the same cleaning chemicals as refills! I admit there is a certain comfort to just picking out the product you want, and not have to mix it yourself at home. Even though it’s not difficult, and doesn’t even take that much more time, it’s an extra cognitive burden. Sometimes, you’re just so busy that you’d rather not have to do that.
Both KitaRefill and MINIMIZE have a surprisingly wide range of various household cleaners. The price comparison with conventional packaged versions varies. Generally, I find that the basic products like floor cleaners and multipurpose cleaners may not be cheaper. However, more focused products like car shampoo are more likely to be.
Options for zero waste disinfectant
Of course, if you opt for a vinegar solution for your general cleaning needs, the acid of the vinegar already has mild antimicrobial properties. However, sometimes you might want to actually sanitise. For that, you would need a real disinfectant (kills 99.9% of pathogens within 5-10 minutes). But can you get any of them zero waste?
Yes, you can!
1. Bleach refills
Bleach is a common household disinfectant. It sanitises through the properties of chlorine, a powerful oxidiser. Bleach is actually a diluted solution of sodium hypochlorite, which releases chlorine, since pure chlorine is a toxic and corrosive gas, and thus impractical.
Safety warning: If you do use bleach at home and are trying out vinegar as a zero waste cleaning solution, never mix bleach with vinegar. This will release toxic chlorine gas, and is potentially lethal.
For these reasons, I use bleach only rarely, and usually don’t stock it at home. I don’t think you should need to use bleach very often at all, assuming a modern relatively sealed home, ventilated bathrooms, and the Asian custom of not wearing outside shoes in the house.
However, bleach is a cheap yet strong disinfectant, and it is commonly available. If you do use bleach, refilling it at MINIMIZE costs RM4.50/kg (RM3.00/kg at KitaRefill), which is comparable to the price range for 1L of conventionally packaged bleach.
2. Sterilising tablets
Thanks to the COVID-19 global pandemic, we all suddenly needed household sanitising solutions for a while, and learned a lot about the feasible options. If you would rather not stock bleach in liquid form, you could also buy NaDCC tablets.
NaDCC stands for sodium dichloroisocyanurate, which was originally made for water purification purposes. Like bleach, it does this by releasing chlorine when dissolved in water. (Obviously, for drinking water purposes, strictly follow the dosage.) However, it can also be used to make a disinfectant solution. Unlike bleach, which is alkaline, NaDCC creates an acidic chlorine solution.
There are some benefits to using NaDCC over chlorine, although it’s more expensive. If you opt to stock NaDCC tablets instead of liquid bleach, you can get the tablets from MINIMIZE at RM0.60/gm. The conventionally packaged version is ~RM0.30/gm; price can be slightly cheaper or higher depending on the volume, but generally cheaper than buying them zero waste.
3. Sanitiser refills
If you don’t want a bleaching agent, there are still alcohol-based disinfectants. Getting them zero waste from MINIMIZE will cost RM38/kg. If you’re buying it to refill small bottles of sanitiser to carry around with you for ad hoc hand sanitising, this is cheaper than buying hand sanitisers. However, if you’re bulk buying for household sanitising, then bulk alcohol sanitiser is at least three times cheaper the conventional way.
Another option is KitaRefill’s pine gel disinfectant. The disinfecting ingredient is the pine oil. Refills of this disinfectant at KitaRefill costs RM8.20/kg. It’s twice as expensive as bleach refills. However, since there’s no chlorine, it doesn’t have the toxicity and corrosion issues of bleach disinfectants. Additionally, buying pine disinfectants in conventional packaging can be cheaper, ranging from RM2.60-RM10/litre depending on the brand.
Rubbing alcohol (diluted isopropyl alcohol, a.k.a. IPA) is in a similar price range as pine disinfectants. However, note that IPA is flammable, and should never be used in the home undiluted. Both rubbing alcohol and IPA are toxic, and should be used according to instructions.
Options for zero waste cleaning items
The cleaning liquids aren’t the only source of waste from household cleaning. Many of us have become used to disposable cleaning items, from kitchen paper towels, to floor wiper sheets, to wet wipes.
Disposable wet wipes and wiper sheets are particularly problematic, as they do not biodegrade in the environment and are increasingly becoming a problem. Not to mention, they come wrapped in plastic too. And although paper towels at least do biodegrade, it still creates a large demand for paper products that, arguably, do not warrant the water and timber use.
However, if you still use paper towels, at least get enough so that the plastic bag they come in is a useful size as a bin liner. I still stock some kitchen roll in the cupboard for those rare occasions when the kitchen rag won’t do the job. It’s mostly only ever used when my mother comes over; I can’t remember the last time I bought them.
The good news is that going zero waste for these items invariably saves money. The exception is if you opt for more eco-friendly paper towels instead of conventional paper towels. MINIMIZE sells a 4-pack bamboo fibre kitchen rolls for RM21, whereas even the premium conventional version is less than half the price.
1. Wash cloths & kitchen towels
Dish rags, wash cloths, kitchen rags – whatever you call it, cotton cloths are my primary zero waste cleaning utensil. Basically, the way we used to do it before the invention of disposables. And of course, I don’t even buy the cloths either; the cloths come from old T-shirts that I’ve cut into rags.
As for cloths to dry your hands with in the kitchen, I use actual towels, not paper towels. My current batch was just an old bath towel that had a hole in it. I cut it into 4 pieces and added loops so they can hang from hooks. Both hang from a convenient rail in the kitchen, and I change them weekly. The rags go into the hot water laundry cycle with my floor mats every month. The towels go in with the other household towels.
Obviously, this method saves money. The amount saved is the cost of however many paper towels and wipes you buy now, vs zero (or almost zero).
Some people might also use microfibre cloths, which are also reusable. I think this is a fair option even though it is a plastic material. However, I don’t use it myself, because I don’t think it makes that big a difference to me. So I’d rather go for the cotton option than the one that contributes microplastics into the environment.
2. Old socks
My second cleaning material is old socks. One day, when I was collecting thinning or holey socks for Kloth fabric recycling, it occurred to me that I could still re-use them before they really should go for textile recycling. It occurred to me that they make great dusting cloths, because they fit conveniently on your hand.
It also then occurred to me that they can make great replacements for disposable floor wiper sheets, because socks sweep up dust very well. However, only the crew socks would fit on the floor wipers (aka ‘swiffer’), and even then it can take some doing. Perhaps men’s socks would be a more suitable size.
3. Brushes and scrubbers
Not all household cleaning tools consist of cloths. There’s the floor scrubber for the shower tiles, for example. In general, brushes and scrubbers made from natural materials are more expensive than their plastic counterparts, except for the coconut fibre brush. Depending on their quality, the plastic tools tend to last some time as well, so these may be a lower priority for switching to zero waste alternatives.
Personally, I use a coconut sisal brush for scrubbing the bathroom. The stiff coconut fibre side is for the floor tiles, whereas the softer sisal side is great for other surfaces. MINIMIZE sells these for RM15.90. This is almost an order of magnitude more expensive than plastic floor brushes. However, it’s not something you buy often, so even though maybe it’s not a high priority to switch first to reduce the most waste, it’s also not as big a deal to buy the natural brush either. In terms of scrubbers for ceramic surfaces and chrome fittings, I just use loofahs.
That said, I have to say that my toilet brushes are still plastic, because it’s a design that can be more easily sanitised. But because of the design, I should be able to use them indefinitely, and it wouldn’t shed plastic bristles through its lifetime.
4. Zero waste floor sweeping
Plastic brooms last for a long time, so I don’t think it necessarily has to be a priority if you’re going zero waste. You probably already have one, and it probably will do fine for years to come. Changing it just to have a broom of natural materials would actually be less zero waste.
That said, what if you’re already looking to replace your broom, or don’t already have one? The good news is that straw or coconut fibre brooms with wooden handles are just as available as plastic ones, and they are even comparable in cost.
Additionally, floor wipers or the ‘swiffer’ are popular modern household cleaning utensils. These plastic tools are paired with disposable microfibre wiper sheets, to pick up dust that brooms won’t be able to remove. While there aren’t non-plastic versions of the floor wiper itself, I have found that old socks do almost as well as the wiper sheets (see above). Although to be honest, sometimes I just use the cordless vacuum cleaner!
Zero waste drain maintenance
Drain maintenance was something I didn’t pay attention to until my sink clogged. That was also when I noticed it collects mould inside the drain pipe more quickly. I had switched to zero waste hygiene products for some time by then, and when I told my mum about it, she told me that I’d have to do some drain maintenance.
Apparently, back in the day, when people used to use bar soaps more, and use fewer things in the bathroom that have preservatives and antibacterial this and that, drain maintenance was one of those household things you were supposed to do. One reason is because bar soap residue can build up in the drain pipes whereas liquid soap is less likely to. And secondly, going zero waste usually means you’re using more natural products. Washing down less chemicals down the drain also means the microbes living in the drains can survive.
This doesn’t mean we have to go back to washing down biocides just to keep the drains clean and clear. It just means doing some drain maintenance every so often, which can also be done in a zero waste way.
By the way, the kitchen sink should also be maintained. Note that it can still get clogged even if you have a macerator. I discovered this the hard way because I assumed it didn’t need it since there’s a macerator. I forgot that fatbergs can still form subsequent to the macerator and still block the drain!
Regular drain cleaning
Regular drain maintenance should be done for all sinks and shower drains. Reduce the likelihood of blockage by pouring hot water down the drains every now and then. Use drain traps in the bathroom and make sure to prevent hair from washing down the drain as well as you can. Hair clogs can’t be dislodged from drains without plumber’s tools, so it’s a pain.
I also clean my most frequently used bathroom sink every month with borax and hot water, with a lower frequency for other drains. Borax is a mildly toxic alkaline salt, quite safe for humans to handle but makes the drains less conducive to pests and mould.
To keep fatbergs from forming in the drains, you can also use ordinary table salt, with or without vinegar. Sea salt is RM5/kg as refills at MINIMIZE, which is twice as expensive as buying pre-packaged salt. I used to get borax from The Hive Eco Store, but since they closed their physical stores I’m out of a refill source. So if no other zero waste stores stock borax by then, I might change to the salt method.
Drain unclogging
If you’ve been negligent and the drain is actually clogged, and borax doesn’t cut it, you can try unclogging the drain with two items you would already have around because they’re versatile zero waste ingredients. Baking soda combined with vinegar creates a chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide, which helps to dislodge the clog (it helps to stop up the sink so the pressure can build up).
Alternatively, conventional drain de-cloggers range from RM5 to RM50 per litre depending on the brand. It’s hard to tell them apart since not all of them actually list the ingredients! However, if your drain is really clogged, especially with hair, then this won’t work. You might as well get a plumber at this point!
Safety advice: Another option is to buy caustic soda (sodium hydroxide, a.k.a. lye) directly as a drain de-clogger. The packaged de-cloggers probably use this as the active ingredient anyway. You can get lye at about RM10/kg on Shopee. I have not found it sold zero waste, probably because it can be dangerous to handle. Caustic soda is corrosive and that’s how it unclogs the drain. The blockage just gets decomposed. However, because it is so reactive, it must be stored securely and you must use safety precautions when using it.
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