Green Living

Easy steps for leaving dirt at the door

 If you’re a gardener, this is the time of year you give up on keeping your house clean. It’s a near impossible effort to keep from tracking part of your garden into your house as you traipse back and forth from vegetable bed to kitchen sink to garage to flower borders. I give myself a lot more latitude during garden season-after all, it’s pretty easy to sweep up and clean off the crumbly loam that ends up in my house.

            But it makes me think about all the other crud that could make its way onto my floors: car oil, salt crystals, herbicides, and other pollutants and toxins. That’s why establishing the home as a shoe-free zone can improve indoor air quality and guarantee sweep-and-mop reduction.

Vena, my neighbor who grew up in China, keeps a rubber mat and a basket of slippers just inside her door. Every time she comes inside, off go the shoes and on go the slippers, keeping unwelcome irritants outside, reducing wear and tear on the floor, and sidestepping the need to clean as frequently.

pollution

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