Using Safer Household Cleaning Products
A few years ago I worked in one of the libraries at the Environmental Protection Agency (side note: they’re open to the public, so check them out, especially if you or someone you know is working on a science project). As a result of some of the things I read and worked on while there, I became a lot more wary of chemicals to which we expose ourselves, often without even realizing it.
Things that we think are safe, like a supposedly innocuous
bottle of laundry detergent, may have the potential to harm us. There are a range of kinds of chemicals that can cause problems. One type is called teratogens. These are chemicals that can cause developmental problems in a fetus. My coming into contact with a teratogen while pregnant can damage the baby I’m carrying even if the chemical causes no outward hard to me, the adult (Ruedy 1984). One of the most well-known incidents of a teratogen’s horrible effects comes from the use of thalidomide in the 1960s. Thalidomide was given to women to help reduce morning sickness, but the effects to their children were absolutely dreadful. For more on thalidomide and its history, see Dark Remedy: the impact of thalidomide and its revival as a vital medicine by Trent Stephens and Rock Brynner or some of the links at the bottom of this article.
Knowing that there are chemicals that can cause harm to my developing baby and even to adults, with more mature bodies that can tolerate exposure with fewer symptoms and problems, I’ve found that it’s worth my time and effort to try to find safer household products, especially for items that result in us coming into contact with them or their byproducts on a regular basis. Laundry detergent, for example, leaves chemicals behind on clothes even after they’ve been washed and dried. For me, using a product that leaves behind chemicals capable of increasing asthma issues or potentially causing developmental issues isn’t worth saving a few extra cents. A 2008 study, for example, found issues with some the more well-known brands of detergent. One had 13 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), five of which were deemed to be toxic hazards by the EPA (Perron 2010).
Everyone needs to decide what is and is not worth it, and if money is so tight that buying a cheaper, more risky version of a product is the best thing for your household, in order to even have clean clothes, for instance, that is a personal decision, and I won’t fault you for it. I am fortunate to have enough leeway in my household budget that I can afford to be more choosey about some of the products I use. You have to decide what the right choice is for your household, though, and just being aware of potential issues may help you reduce potential exposure even if you do need to use products that could pose more of a risk.
As with cosmetics, one of the sources I use to evaluate household cleaners is provided by the Environmental Working Group. Their Guide to Healthy Cleaning database makes it easy for me to find products that have fewer chemicals.
I’ve also found Vine.com to be very useful for searching for products. I can narrow product results down by selecting “values” that are important to me, like: BPA-free, biodegradable, cruelty-free, organic, made of sustainable materials, and water efficient. I’ve recently been using Planet Ultra Laundry Detergent (values I selected in Vine: cruelty-free, natural, biodegradable), which the EWG database rates as an “A,” meaning that there are some ingredients of potential concern but that it ranks as one of the safest laundry detergents available. Even this laundry detergent, one of the safest that seems to be out there, has some chemicals that have the potential for harm, but for me, it’s about reducing risks. This product seems to be safer than most of the other products out there. I find it worthwhile to pay a bit extra to reduce potential risk (as well as gain other qualities like it being produced cruelty-free) rather than save a bit of money and be exposed to a product that poses a much larger potential health hazard.
Any chemical can be used in a way that causes harm. What I aim to do is reduce the potential for harm by using products that contain fewer chemicals likely to cause harm. All parents participate in this kind of risk assessment, and that’s why we install things like putting corner guards on sharp edges in the house or putting a baby gate at the top of stairs to keep the little one from tumbling down them. For me, finding safer household products is just one more way to help protect my household from unintentional harm and to hopefully have a safer, healthier future.
Sources and Further Reading:
“Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals” Tulane University. 2012.
“Endocrine Disruptors.” National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. 5 Jun. 2013. [contains lots of links to other useful resources]
Environmental Working Group’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning. EWG. 2014.
“An introduction to Indoor Air Quality (IAQ): volatile organic compounds (VOCs).” EPA. 2014.
Perron, Celeste. “Go green, not broke.” Prevention. Jun. 2010. Vol. 62, Issue 6. pp.135–148.
