Oven cleaners are one of THE most dangerous cleaning products ever.
Here are a few lovely substances one might find in an oven cleaner:
Naphthalene
A white crystalline compound derived from coal tar or petroleum and used in manufacturing dyes, moth repellents, and explosives and as a solvent. Also called tar camphor
Petroleum Distillates
A thick, flammable, yellow-to-black mixture of gaseous, liquid, and solid hydrocarbons that occurs naturally beneath the earth’s surface, can be separated into fractions including natural gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, fuel and lubricating oils, paraffin wax, and asphalt and is used as raw material for a wide variety of derivative products.
Butylcelosolve
Any of four flammable alcohols derived from butanes and used in organic synthesis and as solvents.
Carcinogens -
Substances that increase the risk of neoplasms in humans or animals. Both genotoxic chemicals, which affect DNA directly, and nongenotoxic chemicals, which induce neoplasms by other mechanism, are included.
Ammonia -
A colorless, pungent gas extensively used to manufacture fertilizers and a wide variety of nitrogen-containing organic and inorganic chemicals.
Chlorine -
A highly irritating, greenish-yellow gaseous halogen, capable of combining with nearly all other elements, produced principally by electrolysis of sodium chloride and used widely to purify water, as a disinfectant and bleaching agent, and in the manufacture of many important compounds including chloroform and carbon tetrachloride.
Hydrochloric Acid -
A clear, colorless, fuming, poisonous, highly acidic aqueous solution of hydrogen chloride, HCl, used as a chemical intermediate and in petroleum production, ore reduction, food processing, pickling, and metal cleaning. It is found in the stomach in dilute form.
Organochlorine -
Any of various hydrocarbon pesticides, such as DDT, that contain chlorine.
the above definitions sourced from what’s under YOUR Sink?
What if you could clean off burnt on food in your oven without losing nose hairs in the process?
Allow me to share a green clean nugget, a moment of greenness – just you, me and that darn oven.
Consider trying a green clean scouring paste that smells a little like something between bubble gum and cherry Kool-Aid.
Gentle in that it won’t scratch, but mighty in that it works really well !!
It’s NON-TOXIC and bio-degradable too!
Certainly not something one thinks of as an oven cleaner.
How many folks do you know who believe it needs to be really nasty chemical to get the job done?
Try again. Pick your very toughest stain or oven and let this alternative scouring paste and a little elbow grease take it on!!
circa 1967self-cleaning flickr image
last year one of my readers said — i have that oven!!
