Lake Macquarie City Library celebrated May as ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle month’, by hosting a series of Green Cleaning workshops. Council enlisted the help of Environmental Educator, Theresa Rutherford, to demonstrate how people can make environmentally friendly household cleaners to use in their own home.
Theresa Rutherford owns her own business – Compost Happens. She runs non toxic cleaning workshops and ecology workshops for schools and kindergartens.
The workshops, held at Lake Macquarie City Council’s libraries, covered helpful and harmful ingredients lists, plants as air purifiers, and a basic shopping list for non toxic cleaning materials and their uses. They also covered personal health products, such as toothpaste. Promotions Technician, Kylie Duncan, said the free workshops have been a great success, with most sessions fully booked out.
“Environmental pollution is a real concern for many people,” she said. “We have to take action now, and reduce our impact on the environment. As individuals, we have to look at how we can make a difference. These workshops give us the knowledge and skills to minimise our use of harmful chemicals.”
During the workshops, participants learnt how to make a number of environmentally cleaning products, such as a paste cleaner for pots and pans, laundry soap powder, wool wash, mould spray, and a surface scourer called Giff.
Kylie Duncan said only natural ingredients were used to make each product.
“Vinegar, bicarbonate soda, water, essential oils, such as lavender, eucalyptus and tea tree, were all used to make the cleaning products,” she said.
Further workshops are being held throughout June. For further information contact Kylie Duncan on (02) 4921 0477.
