It happens to all of us.  At some point, the kitchen or bathroom drain gets clogged and water backs up, sometime unleashing very unpleasant odors. 

Instead of reaching for that bottle of standard drain cleaner under the sink, try this natural version that works just as well, without the potential for planetary harm and personal injury...

A Simple Recipe for Unclogging Drains

• Remove all water from the sink or tub and pour about 1 cup baking soda down the drain.
• Then pour 1 cup vinegar down the drain, plugging it immediately (if you’re unclogging a double sink, plug both drains).
• When the bubbles have died down (about 30 minutes), chase them down the drain with some hot water.

If this recipe seems familiar to you, you may have (at one point in your school days) used this recipe to make an erupting volcano for science class.  Baking soda, a base, combined with vinegar, an acid, reacts to form carbon dioxide and sodium acetate—the bubbles that do the scrubbing work inside the drain.  Once drain gunk is dissolved, these natural, non-toxic ingredients get flushed down the now clog-free drain.

Baking soda and vinegar are natural ingredients preferable to the manufactured chemical sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda or lye.  Sodium hydroxide is the active ingredient in standard drain cleaners.  While the chemical isn’t too harmful for the environment since it’s broken down by the time it flows into oceans and rivers, it can be harmful to whomever it touches.

Baking soda and vinegar are common, consumable (though perhaps not together!) ingredients that don’t pose health dangers and are probably already sitting in your kitchen cupboards.