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DID YOU KNOW?
8 out of 10 reported poison exposures involve household cleaning products?
You know that good, healthy feeling you get when you are cleaning? Sorry to spoil it, but you may have just made your home dirtier. Think of it this way. You wouldn't let your kids play with toxic chemicals, so why would you let the baby crawl over a floor that’s just been wiped with them?
Pollutants, found in many common cleaning products and air fresheners, are found at levels 2 to 5 times higher inside your home than out. A person who spends 15 minutes cleaning scale off shower walls could inhale three times the "acute one-hour exposure limit" for glycol ether-containing products set by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
Common cleaning products give off fumes that increase the risk of kids developing asthma, the most common chronic childhood disease. Children are highly vulnerable to chemical toxicants, which is why one in 13 school-aged children has asthma. Rates in children under five have increased more than 160% from 1980 – 2004.
Pound for pound of body weight, children drink more water, eat more food, and breathe more air than adults. The implication of this is that children will have substantially heavier exposures than adults to any toxins that are present in water, food, or air.
If your home is anything like the average U.S. home, you generate more than 20 pounds of household hazardous waste each year (the EPA designates toilet cleaning products, tub and tile cleaners, oven cleaning products, and bleach as hazardous waste). To find out what's lurking on your shelves, go to the National Institutes of Health Library of Medicine
Household Products Database.
You can search almost any brand of cleaning product you use, find out what's in it, and uncover its links to health effects. Or search by chemical ingredients (see list below for some examples) and discover what brands contain them. Many of the common chemical ingredients to look out for in cleaning products are:
* Sodium hydroxide
* Hydrochloric acid
* Butyl cello solve (2-Butoxyethanol)
* Formaldehyde
* Bleach (sodium hypochlorite)
* Ammonia
* Sulfamic acid
* Petroleum distillates
* Sulfuric acid
* Lye (potassium hydroxide)
* Morpholine
According to a 15-year study presented at the Toronto Indoor Air Conference, women who work at home have a 54% higher death rate from cancer than those who work away from home. The study concluded that this was a direct result of the increased exposure to toxic chemicals, many of which are found in common household cleaning products.
What's The Deal With Organic Cleaning Products?
Here is how to keep your home impeccably clean, and safe. Get the dirt. Educate yourself about what you bring into your home as well as the benefits of using organic cleaning products. Have a clean-for-all. Put on the gloves and get rid of the nasty, toxic stuff in your home. Responsibly, of course. You will feel and smell the benefits of switching to organic cleaning products after a couple weeks.
Your local waste collection service has guidelines for proper household hazardous waste disposal, as well as collection sites for things like paint, batteries, and cleaning products.
Whatever you do, please don't toss this stuff in the garbage.
Welcome healthy into your home. Commit to carefully considering everything that crosses your doorstep. Here are some safe, healthy things to have in your home:
* Organic cleaning products that are truly cleaner because they are nontoxic, natural, biodegradable, concentrated, and hypoallergenic.
* Fresh air. Open your windows to reduce indoor air pollution
* Essential oils. Use these instead of air fresheners
* Plants. Besides being nice to look at, they absorb harmful gases and help clean the air
* Organic cotton bedding. Avoid standard bedding treated with chemicals
* Floors made of recycled and renewable resources
* Healthier paint. Don't use oil paint, choose low VOC latex paint instead
Clean up our collective home. Make the earth healthier for all of us who call it home by using organic cleaning products as well as compact fluorescent lights. They last a whole lot longer. Energy Star-rated appliances will save you money and energy.
A low-flush toilet. Replace the largest user of water in your house. Ultra low flushers cut water use by one-fifth. Low-flow showerheads have the same pressure, but less water.
Your flicker finger. Turn off lights and appliances when you're not using them. Install a gray water system to recycle used household water for your lawn. A tank-less water heater will save you money, energy, and space in the broom closet.
At Diet Health and Fitness we want you to get your home as clean and as safe as possible for you, your family, and our planet. If you are unfamiliar with the harm caused by chemicals in cleaning products do your research and find out for yourself.
Then take action by using organic cleaning products in your home. Over time you will save money and your house will be much cleaner.
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