The manual that came with our washing machine and the little sticker that used to be on the ol’ girl both tried to tell me that I am supposed to have been doing this task once a month. You should know that this has never been the case, and I may have removed the little sticker just to avoid the constant reminder that it was not the case, haha. This blog post is for those that may have left things a little bit too long, and really need to complete a deep clean!

Please note that as you get into this, I am not an expert on all of the washing machines that exist, or the materials that make them up. Please make sure you consult your manual, and your best judgement. This is how I cleaned my machine. For the first time this year :)

As far as spring cleaning goes, I find I take advantage of that spring energy to clean things I do not normally get to. I’m currently working through the washing machine, the dishwasher, the oven, and finally cleaning out the cupboards, but it takes the first sunny days to get motivated to do this stuff. Read on if you’ve left this task a little too long, and really need to clean in there deep, while also trying to do it in a way that doesn’t negatively impact your health, your home’s air, and the water table when you’re finished.

Step One: Assemble the Goods

Items that I gathered to complete this task included:

1. Safe Bleach - this kind of bleach is called oxygen bleach and doesn’t involve chlorine gas like conventional bleach. This makes things a bit cleaner for your home’s air and your own lungs while you scrub away. It is available in a powder format in the shop, meaning it doesn’t require a fresh and new plastic jug to house every litre you buy, and it can be added to your own tap water, meaning it doesn’t require the shipment of water around everywhere the product goes (lessening its carbon footprint overall). It is safe to use on colours, so no need to stress that you might accidentally bleach your own clothing while cleaning.
2. Sal’s Suds - Sal’s Suds is a great biodegradable detergent that has multiple uses. It can double as a laundry soap but works very nicely for scrubbing and washing things down without the not awesome conventional ingredients and the artificial fragrances. It can be washed down the drain without a worry about the impact on the water table or the environment long-term. 
3. Mint All Purpose Cleaning Spray - now, you probably could just use the Sal’s Suds, but I enjoyed using this as a freshener and for cleaning the exterior of my machine (where I didn’t really need suds). A vinegar and water spray would also work extremely well in place of this.
4. An Old Towel - we keep a ‘grubby’ towel or two around for gross jobs that need it, and this is one of those jobs. The towel absorbs water much better than paper towel and can be washed after instead of tossed. Because it is one of our towels that had a significant rip in it, we also are repurposing something that would have ended up as waste.
5. Old Compostable Toothbrushes - we save our old toothbrushes and kitchen brushes for these kinds of gross tasks. It saves buying something new and extends the lifetime of something before it becomes waste. Because we are using only biodegradable materials on the brushes, I don’t mind composting them afterward, but they can kick around for a good long while if you can wash them after in the safe bleach water and allowed to dry well.
6. Metal Bowl - this tool was thrifted and comes in handy for so many jobs around the house. Thrift shops are full of mixing bowls, so no need to get expensive with it!
7. Rags - we have a number of rags in the house for cleaning that are old cloth napkins, weary tea towels, or cut up linens. They save a lot of waste and I find do a better job cleaning and wiping anyway, compared with paper towel. You can read more about this on another one of our blog posts if you haven’t set it up yet and are curious.
8. Paper Towel - we keep one roll of paper towel around for tasks that would otherwise ruin our rags, like sopping up some pet vomit or wiping the filter of our washing machine when it is caked in guck. The idea is to use the most wasteful thing the least and only when necessary, and to use the reusables the rest of the time. We like the brand Caboo as it is tree-free paper towel and can be purchased in paper packaging; we can manage a bit more of an expense here as we buy so little of it (maybe 2-3 rolls a year versus the cases our rags save us from needing). 
   

Step Two: The Filter

Remove the filter from your machine. I imagine other filters may not be this gross, but it has been some time since its last bath. I stuffed the towel underneath the font of the washer to catch any water that escaped, then wiped the guck off the filter with a paper towel. Next, I added a half teaspoon of safe bleach to hot water in the metal bowl and let it soak. Throughout the rest of the cleaning process, I would come back to the filter and scrub it off using an old toothbrush. This filter was in such a bad state that I needed to refill the safe bleach water half way through. I cleaned out the filter housing with safe bleach water, paper towels, and then rags.

Step Three: The Dispenser

Next, I pulled out the detergent dispenser and added it to a sink of hot water and a teaspoon of safe bleach to soak. I sprayed the detergent dispenser housing with the Mint All Purpose Spray (and sprayed things down for step four). After I let it sit a bit, I used the toothbrush to scrub all of the crevices and a rag to finish cleaning this space out. After a bit of a soak in the sink, I did the same with the detergent dispenser tray.

Step Four: The Drum

The drum and the rubber seal needed a good clean, so I sprayed them down with the Sal’s Suds (and the Mint Cleaning Spray) and let it soak a few minutes before taking my toothbrush to them. Everything was scrubbed down and wiped. I had to use paper towel to remove some gunk in places inside the seal near the drain for the water, and I used the water in my filter soaking bowl to refresh my tooth brush as I went. It was great to have the towel down in front of the machine for this step!

Step Five: The Door/Exterior

Next, I wiped down the door and exterior of the machine with the Mint All Purpose Spray and my rag.

Step Six: Reassemble and Wash

Finally, I put everything back together (the filter and the detergent drawer, etc.) and ran a wash cycle in my machine. I know lots of machines have a sanitizing or cleaning cycle, but we do not. Instead, I ran a rare hot water cycle in the machine with nothing inside. The Sal’s Suds in the drum/machine from cleaning (as well as the remnants of the safe bleach and Mint Cleaning Spray) helped to rinse and clean the machine. 

And there you have it, a washer deep clean without much waste, using repurposed and refill ingredients, that doesn’t impact the earth or air around us like our past conventional washing machine cleans did!

Below: we took advantage of the safe bleach soak water in our kitchen sink and soaked the rest of our cleaning tools (copper scrubbies and old kitchen brushes). We then let them fully dry in that fresh spring sunshine on a rag to get them ready for the rest of the spring cleans happening soon.