The Natural Way to Clean a Utility Sink

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We moved into our current home two years ago. You know how it is when you move into a new home, you’ve got a to-do list a mile long. Cleaning the stained utility sink in our laundry room was on the list but kept getting pushed farther down the list as we tackled other chores. Cleaning the utility sink isn’t very glamorous or at least it’s not very glamorous until you finally do it and see your glorious looking-like-new utility sink. Then you wonder what had been keeping you from cleaning it for two whole years. The best part is that I cleaned this sink for pennies and without chemicals by using my favorite natural way to clean a utility sink and anything else that’s stained and grimy.

top image - stained utility sink, bottom image - clean sink

This past spring I shared our new kitchen renovation with you. I can’t tell you how over-the-moon happy our new kitchen continues to make me six months later. 

bright and neat white and black kitchen with blue pendant lights

Our laundry room and utility sink is just off the kitchen (through the door to the left of the cooktop). Once our kitchen renovation was completed it just highlighted how much the stained utility sink was bugging me, so I impetuously jumped on cleaning it before I even took before pictures (that’s how much it was bugging me!).  The house is 20 years old and I assume that the utility sink is original to the house, so that means that was 20 years worth of grime and stains in that plastic utility sink that needed to be cleaned. Yuck!

The Natural Way to Clean a Utility Sink

white utility sink with one side stained and one side clean

My longtime favorite cleaning trick is to use a scrubby sponge and baking soda. Yep, you heard me right. A simple scrubby sponge, baking soda and a little elbow grease was able to take that grungy utility sink back to almost new.

Corner of clean white utility sink

I took less than an hour total of scrubbing to get rid of those stains, even in the corners of the sink. I’d just scrub until I was tired and then come back later to do a bit more until it was all bright and clean.

shiny faucet on clean white plastic utility sink

The baking soda and sponge even removed the gunk that was all over the faucet, crusted around the base of the faucet and crusted in the grooves of the built-in soap dishes.

Baking soda is my all-time favorite cleaner and was the perfect natural way to clean a utility sink that had 20 years of stains and build up. Do you use baking soda as a cleanser?

top image - stained utility sink, bottom image - clean sink

Check out my post about how to Remove Stains from Aluminum Cookware Naturally, and these additional natural kitchen cleaner ideas from Katie at Kitchen Stewardship.

More ideas:

decorated disinfecting wipes container sitting near sink
collage of repurposed items used to organize in the kitchen

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10 Comments

  1. Susan, I love to use baking soda for cleaning. I am always amazed at how well it scrubs things clean. I would love to have a sink like this in my wash room.

    1. It’s the first time I’ve had a laundry room tub and I’m loving it (especially now that it’s nice and clean).

  2. That is so brilliant and so simple. I’ll be trying that on our utility sink. My husband, the plumber, learned something new with this post.

  3. Cleaning with harmful chemicals falls by the wayside with your fabulous idea which does as good if not better job of getting that sink looking its best. Baking soda has so many uses and it doesn’t harm our water supply like those chemicals do.

  4. I am very impressed! As a cleaner, for this kind of stains, I usually use expensive toxic cleaners and the result is not better then this one! 🙂 I need to start using more natural cleaners as I am exposed to toxins every day and that isn’t good. Thanks for sharing! 🙂

  5. I love cleaning with baking soda too, but when I saw your post on Hometalk, I guessed you’d used white vinegar because I didn’t think baking soda would do the trick. Now I have to go tackle my icky sink.

    1. Baking soda is my favorite natural cleaner, I use it on almost everything, Linda. White vinegar is a close second though. Have fun cleaning your sink ;).

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