During my Earth Day satellite media tour, one of the tips I offered was using baking soda as a scouring powder to clean your tub and sinks. It’s an eco-friendly and economical way of keeping your bathroom spotless and odor free, and something I’d written about before.

Now that I’ve got baking soda on my radar, I keep finding new and creative uses for it. Here are two uses I just came across and which you might not have considered:

* Removing stains on light-colored counter tops
Yesterday, I was wiping down my kitchen counters, which since we haven’t gotten around to renovating our kitchen yet, are still “vintage” white 1960s counter tops. Add coffee and cranberry juice to the mix and, well, I’m always battling stains. For awhile I was using the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, a product I hadn’t tried before but which my Realtors had introduced me to last year when I needed to get scuff marks out of the hardwood floors in my old house–and any other discoloration so that the house was always “show ready.” That Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is pretty magic, but with our new green and frugal living, I wanted to find a replacement that I didn’t have to pay extra for. And I found that replacement in a baking soda box.

Yesterday, for the heck of it, I sprinkled some baking soda on the leftover cranberry juice and coffee stains, and then used a wet rag, with a little bit of elbow grease, to clean the surface. Though the baking soda left behind some nasty grittiness, it did the trick in getting rid of the stains.

* Taking away the burnt smell on dishes
You may recall that last fall one of my fireplaces (yes, we have three) malfunctioned, and left my kids’ playroom smelling as if we’d had a bonafide house fire. After trying nearly everything under the sun to get rid of the smoky smell, I finally settled on open bowls of baking soda placed strategically around the room. Within days the smoke smell was nearly all the way gone. What reminded me of this was a Q&A on a blog I subscribe to called Home-Ec 101. (It’s got a clever tag line: “What you wish your mama taught you.”)

Earlier this week someone had written in about a plastic cup that had fallen in the dishwasher and melted on the heating coil. While she was able to clean up the melted plastic, the rest of the dishes were left with a burnt plastic smell, which washing and rewashing did nothing to remove. The experts at Home-Ec 101 suggested soaking the smelly dishes in baking soda and water. Then, if that didn’t work, putting them back in the dishwasher and filling the soap cup with baking soda instead. I’ll bet that not only will the baking soda do the trick with the odor but also it will make those dishes–especially the light-colored ones–look cleaner than they have in a long time.

Have you come up with other creative uses for baking soda? I’d love to hear about them.