How to polish silver in a few minutes – the green way

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

When 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.