Cleaning
agents
7Th March
Today we will think on the various
cleaning agents we use in our daily life. We use so many cleaning agents, soaps
for bathing, washing our hairs & hands, washing our utensils & cloths,
cleaning our floor and furniture, cleaning our toilets etc.
If we think about the purpose one is
literally cleaning-- cleaning the dirt, dust, sweat, sticky, oiliness from it.
And secondly take care of, getting rid of microorganisms from it,—form body,
from floor, from utensils etc. I am
totally agree with the first reason we must clear all above things almost every
time, every day. So let’s discuss on that first and then we will come to the
second point.
Today all these cleaning agent’s
contents very high degree of chemical agents.
It is a fact that you cannot make a soap or detergent powder without
using a chemical such as caustic soda. There cannot be herbal or Ayurvedic soap
without such chemicals. So please come out of such misunderstanding that I am
using herbal soap or shampoo. And the detergents used for washing clothes,
utensils & floor have much more chemicals than bathing soap and shampoos.
One thing is very clear to me today we are opting for chemical cleaning.
Naturally it has its side effects on
us, on our physical health and environmental health. It is a proven fact that
all this chemicals are carcinogenic and responsible for many cancers. One may
argue that we are not consuming this chemicals as a food so how can they are
responsible for the cancer growth. If you observe carefully even if you take
while washing your utensils some little portion of it stays with your utensils.
Naturally you are consuming this poison every day.
Ultimately all this chemicals are
mixing with river water or sea water or will eventually mix with our mother
soil. And will ultimately through sea food, river food and food coming from our
soil will reach us. A big risk! Also
tons of these chemicals are polluting our natural resources.
So what are the options? Just go few
decades back and you will get all the options. The answer is mechanical
cleaning. The soaps entered in Indian land around 16-17 th AD. The history says
that in Europe from 15 th to up to around 18 th century soaps were not a
commodity for a common man, they were very expensive. Naturally before that Europeans must be using
a mechanical cleaning. What is this mechanical cleaning? As for oily utensils
we were using mud or ash. The dryness of mud and ash will absorb the stickiness
of utensils making it clean. I have tried it myself and it works. Most of the
time when utensils are not sticky even a plain water is enough to clean the
utensils. Try it yourself.
Same with the body. Our skin oozes a
sticky substance which makes our skin oily. On this oily surface dust gets
stuck. If such dirt remains there then may be microorganisms will grow there
and will create a problem. So if we take care of this dirt then we don’t have
to worry about microbes. Clean skin naturally has a protective mechanism for
all such microbes. And then the various scrubbers is the answer. Remember what
we were using to clean the skin—a rough rock, a cloth, a fibers from different
dried gourds, a coarse powder of pulses
such as chickpea, red gram etc,
ubtan—mixture of different herbal powders and even a soil like multani
mitti.
Basically anything coarse, rough which
will have a scrubbing action and will take out the dirt from the skin. When you
rub such rough material the dirt comes out making your skin clean. Once it is
free of dirt it is free of microbes. A
mechanical cleaning!
Actually you can try this experiment.
Bath with a soap and then once again bath with using any scrubber immediately.
You will be surprised to see how much dirt comes out. Soaps are not doing their
job. When you use scrubber you get a real feeling of cleaned skin. I myself
using a stone, the same stone for last 8-10 years and might well go for next
many years. Only for the face I use some herbal powder or powder made from
chick peas. Only problem with such bath is you have to invest some time and
some strength.
I think this is the issue. We don’t have
time, today we need a quick wash. Secondly some of us also don’t want to use
this exercise of rubbing, they want an easy solution. But all these fast and
easy solutions are putting us is in more risk.
Now the big issue of microbes. We
are exposing to media day and night which are coming up with the advertisements
showing very dangerous microbes on your skin, on your hands, your teeth.
Naturally a common man will rush to the shop and will buy these soaps to
protect oneself, one’s family. But is there any truth behind this? We must
think then why these microbes were not affecting our ancestors or those few of
us not using soaps even today? Are we human beings are so weak then rest of the
species that we need such chemicals to protect us. Try not using soaps and
nothing will change rather you will have a more healthy skin. Just use
scrubbers and your purpose is solved. And these scrubbers are not polluting
your soil and water.
For hairs
again go back to age old cleaning agents as Shikekai and Reetha. Make a decoctions from it and wash your
hairs.
Now let’s
discuss about solutions to clean floor and toilets. Actually for floor we have
to just clean it with water, no absolute need to use any chemical. We don’t
have to take any action against microbes, just clean the dirt and dust. If
don’t get a strong smell of chemicals we don’t feel like our home is clean.
What a powerful impact on us. Just think for years people are staying in houses
where floor is made up of mud and cow dung. I strongly feel that someone must
do a research in depth on this issue.
For toilets
I follow a simple advice from my friend. Just clean the commode every day with
a broom made to clean it. If you do it
every day it remains absolutely clean. Again no need to use any strong
chemical. Sometimes the issue comes about the foul smell. Most of the times if
you keep it clean the issue of smell doesn’t come and even if it comes use some
natural fragrance.
Now the
question remained is of clothes. Here I have not got a good solution. One thing
I have tried is soaking the clothes in water or a hot water for hours and then
striking them on a floor or on a rock. These takes out some portion of dirt
from them. Remember how they used to wash the clothes in olden days. These repetitive
striking loose out the dirt and takes it out. But the oily dirt needs some use
of soap. We have to search what are the olden day’s solutions?
When I studied
about soap making some facts became very clear to me. The original soaps were
made from just using oils, fats and caustic soda. That’s all. You mix them and
your soap is ready. I have tried it and it was the best soap I have ever used.
But as oils and fats became costlier they started adding fillers just to fill
the space. (This reduces the efficacy of the soap.) That is why still some
soaps made today by using oils are expensive. And as good amount of oils are
there so they don’t make your skin dry. They reduce the effect of caustic on
your skin.
On the other
hand these new generation of soaps started using multiple new chemicals making
them strong and stronger. Especially the washing soaps. Detergent powders,
making the pollution worst.
May be in these issues we have to
go a step back. We can use the soaps or powders few decades ago where they were
using very few chemicals and good amount of oils/fats. Remember those yellow
cakes. I can think of the same issue here. With such old generation soaps you
need some mechanical strength, striking the clothes again and again, rubbing
them again and again. So again some time and strength. To avoid these the new
detergents came in the pictures. The additional benefits in washing clothes in
this way is going through the good exercise, no need to take out a separate
time.
So let’s
move few steps back and start using Eco-friendly, health friendly solutions.
Many of us must be using such solutions even today. Please share your
experiments with all so we will know many more age-old ways and many doors will
be open for us. Most important is please come out of the fear factor of
microbes. Pl search on it and you will know that we are unnecessary taking the
extra precaution to clean our house with these super chemicals. Just imagine if
every one of us minimizes the use of these deadly chemicals what massive effect
it will have on water and soil pollution!
Dr Nikhil
Pune
