Sitting at a table with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of noxious silver cleaner is the worst – and it’s not even eco-friendly. Here’s a better method

W hen I was a child, one of my jobs was to polish the silverware. Saying this makes my family sound far more posh than we were. Our house was chronically filled with chaos and noise, and the shoes, toys and general detritus of the six children, dog and several guinea pigs who called it home. The silverware represented the only shred of civility my beleaguered parents had left, and they clutched it with all their might. Hauling the utensils out on special occasions meant they hadn’t completely capitulated to the army of small children they had created, so haul it out they did. And when they did, it was my job to polish it.

This particular chore was one of my most hated. It meant sitting at the kitchen table with a roll of paper towel and a bottle of noxious silver cleaner, meticulously polishing each fork and spoon, trying to work the polish into each crevice without first passing out from the fumes. It was long, laborious, and always gave me a headache.

Almost 20 years later, as an adult living a life decidedly absent any need for a set of “good silverware”, I discovered a simple, foolproof way to clean real silver without the toxic polish, without the fumes and without the piles of used paper towels. My reaction to this discovery was equal parts elation and rage. It was magic to see, but infuriating, too. I’d wasted whole afternoons of my life slaving away at that kitchen table when I could have been doing this simple process instead. I’m now going to share this method with you so that my childhood travails weren’t entirely in vain.

To begin, you’ll need a plastic container large enough to fit the items you’re cleaning, some aluminum foil, boiling water, and a few tablespoons of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda, for you Brits).

Bring water to a boil (enough to completely submerge your piece of silver) and line your container with a piece of aluminum foil, shiny side up (it’s OK if you need to use several sheets overlapping in a larger container). Fill your container with boiling water and then add baking soda, roughly 2tbsp per litre of boiling water. Next, add the silver, making sure it touches the aluminum foil.

Immediately you’ll see a bit of bubbling and fizzing, and gradually you’ll see the tarnish being lifted from the silver, revealing the shiny lustre underneath. After a few minutes, remove the silver (carefully – it’ll be hot) and remove any lingering tarnish by drying it with a soft cloth. If your piece is badly tarnished, you may need to repeat the process a few times.

The magic behind this hands-free silver polish is the way that the tarnish coating on the silver reacts with aluminum. Sulfur atoms, which adhere to the silver to create silver sulfide – that dark, tarnished look – are carried by the solution and transfer to the aluminum, forming aluminum sulfide and leaving your silver sparkling. Recycle the aluminum foil and you’ve got a waste-free way to polish your silver.

Eco-friendly methods are their best when they’re like these two tricks: quick, easy, and effective. I’ve never been a very good martyr (just ask my parents, who had to listen to me moan and whinge about the silver-polishing) so while my motivation for taking a DIY approach to laundry detergent, cleaning, or personal care products is ultimately about mitigating my impact on the environment (doing so virtually eliminates packaging, drastically reduces waste, and uses non-toxic ingredients) it also just has to work.

And when it does, it seems like magic.