Look under your kitchen sink, or inside your utility closet, or wherever you keep your household cleaning products. You probably have a lot of different bottles stashed away — most Americans do.

So, what did you find in there? Window/glass cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, spray bleach, detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets, spot remover, spray starch, automatic dishwashing detergent, hand dishwashing liquid, furniture polish, oven cleaner, scouring cream, shower cleaner, tub and tile cleaner, carpet shampoo and probably several other products you can no longer remember why you bought in the first place.

When we greened Hackensack University Medical Center, the janitorial staff had been using 22 different cleaning products. This inflated figure was pretty typical of the hospitals and other institutions — including schools — that we visited. Some places were using up to 25 or 30 different products. By the end of the greening process at Hackensack, we'd cut that number down to eight core and 11 total, half of what they used to order.

Like hospitals, we waste a great deal of money and precious storage space on specialty products. You actually only need a handful of versatile nontoxic products to clean your entire house.