Cleaning with Baking Soda, Vinegar, and Lemons

Isn't the pic above completely sick? That's my bathroom floor before getting the scrub down I am about to explain. In my defense I spilled charcoal on the already disgusting floor and let it rub into the badly manufactured faux tile crevices. (Note to all people about to install tile in their homes: DO NOT buy any type of tile flooring with tons of texture and tiny cracks, while they may look hot & earthy on the showroom floor it will forever gross you out in reality cause they shall never get fully clean again!)

I am pretty sure if my mom sees this picture above she will get an OCD migraine and dream of bleach fairies coming to sprinkle droplets of sterilization on the disaster I have let unfold below my feet...but no can do. This is a job that can be handled chem free with a box of baking soda, lemons and vinegar! Personally I love the smell of lemons and the baking soda makes a great scrub - I only break out the vinegar for the extra tough jobs since I try not to have my house smell too much like a souring hippy on a raw diet. ;) The exact ratio of what to use depends on what kind of mess you are cleaning up, but I follow the volcano rule : whateva' makes the best bakin' soda volcano will clean the floor the best.

I know this after pic above might not say volumes of the power of baking soda, lem and vin mix but trust me, this is as clean as they can get ... well 95% as clean. I am sure if I unleashed my mom + a scouring pad on this surface it could get at least 5% cleaner! ;) xoxo

What Is Baking Soda Exactly? Is it Eco?

We scrub our tub, bake a cake, brush our teeth and make our toilets gleem ... we even can wash out greasey grime from hard to manage hair with it. When reading an article on Eco-Chick today about mixing it with a little shampoo for extra cleaning power, and a few weeks ago on Tiny Choices for making DIY toothpaste - I suddenly realized I had no idea what Baking Soda actually is!
If you are cluless too of the actual chemistry, here is some confusing clarification:

" It is a component of the mineral natron and is found dissolved in many mineral springs. Sodium bicarbonate is an amphoteric compound.
Commercial quantities of baking soda are produced by: soda ash, mined in the form of the ore trona, is dissolved in water and treated with carbon dioxide. Sodium bicarbonate precipitates as a solid from this method:
Na2CO3 + CO2 + H2O → 2NaHCO3 "
Say Wha? Ok, so they mine the trona to make the baking soda with because the other popular method of obtaining baking soda called the Solvay process apparently causes pollution probs-> "In inland plants, such as that in Solvay, New York, the byproducts have been deposited in "waste beds" the weight of material deposited in these waste beds exceeded that of the soda ash produced by about 50%. These waste beds have led to water pollution, principally by calcium and chlorine ions. The waste beds in Solvay, New York substantially increased the salinity in nearby Onondaga Lake, which is among the most polluted lakes in the U.S. and is a superfund pollution site."
Darn it! And the trona dates back 50 million years in some areas, which makes me think of oil and how we have all but raped the earth of it without a thought to how eliminating any substance completely could change the ecology of the planet (even beyond the fumes of pollution).
Does this mean Baking Soda is not very eco? Egyptians used it in it's natural mineral form as a type of soap, but the stuff we are buying is commercially & chemically produced using massive industrial efforts, and may be causing more mess to clean up. A mess that actually can't be cleaned with baking soda.

What do you think about how baking soda is made, do you think it is still the eco- friendly & natural go to product?