The Toxic Jungle

Conventional Chemical Cleaning Products:

Conventional cleaning products may be wiping away the dirt and grime but leaving behind dangerous chemical residues. Don?t be fooled by colorful packaging and labels claiming to be all natural, biodegradable, and non-toxic. Trade secret laws enable up to 99% of the products to be hidden from the public in the ?inert? ingredients which is often where the most toxic chemicals can be found. The vast majority of consumer products do not list these inert ingredients. I have been successfully cleaning my house with a few truly non-toxic homemade and store bought cleaning products for over 7 years now. For example, a paste made from borax powder, water, and distilled white vinegar is an effective mold and mildew remover for bathroom tiles. Toxicity testing by Anderson Labs, an independent toxicology lab, found that Ecover unscented dish soap was a safer choice. Also, one would be wise to stop using all air fresheners, disinfectant sprays and deodorizing products. They do not clean the air, they only inhibit our ability to smell by coating our nasal passages with a nerve deadening chemical or oily substance. Spray disinfectants kill germs on contact. Once your counter is wiped clean, new germs decend from the air.

The toxic effects of common household products are not limited to the user of the product. Pollution is created during the manufacturing, use and disposal stage--a three pronged attack. Though many communities are equipped with hazardous household waste pickup days and some of these products can be recycled (like latex paint) many are destined for toxic waste landfills. It just doesn?t go away.

Thankfully many non-toxic and least toxic alternatives exist for most of the everyday conventional products. The positive impact of switching to these safer alternatives are multidimensional. We all vote with our pursestrings. If there is no demand for chemical laden products, the supply will diminish and the manufacturers will be forced to change. Once we switched to these healthier alternatives, shopping actually became easier.

It is much easier to blame the power plants, corporate polluters, the government, our neighbors, or anyone else but ourselves for the disastrous state of our environment. Though none of us are solely responsible nor perhaps even aware of the impact of our choices, we all contribute to the problems. In fact, Union of Concerned Scientists, Michael Brower and Warren Leon, in their book, The Consumer?s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, tell us that there are three areas of household consumption that create the highest amount of environmental damage: transportation, food, and household operations (cleaning products, pesticides, heating & hot water, lighting & appliances, etc.).

So, what is a concerned person to do? The critical first step is to educate ourselves, raise our awareness of the impact of each choice. Once informed, the next and perhaps most difficult step is to change our behavior. We can change, and if we don?t, who will?