Less Toxic Guide: 5 Items to Avoid in Your Home & Garden

5 Items to avoid in your home and garden:

• Antibacterial products with triclosan
• Chemical pesticides and Fertilizers
• Cookware with non-stick coating
• Cosmetics and toiletries with synthetic fragrances
• Electronics contraining brominated flame retardants

On a typical cleaning day in a typical Canadian home, levels of chemicals in the indoor air can be hundreds, even thousands of times higher than the outdoor air in the most polluted of cities. In fact, indoor air pollution levels would be high enough to trigger an inspection by health and safety authorities in any workplace setting. (The Nature of Things, CBC-TV 2002). Many chemicals contained in household cleaning products are the same as those used in industrial settings. Many scientists are now becoming concerned that long-term low-level exposure to chemicals may be just as dangerous as short-term high-dose exposures. They also worry that we do not understand the impact of exposure to the cocktail of chemicals found in household air and dust. Testing for human health effects is normally done on single chemicals. But in the real world, we are all exposed to a variety of chemicals every single day. Prior to WWII most household cleaning tasks were accomplished using relatively safe ingredients commonly found in most homes. With the proliferation of petroleum-based chemicals after the war, corporations began to manufacture ready-made cleaning products. Today, most people are accustomed to buying a wide range of products custom-designed for the many surfaces, materials and rooms in their homes.Most cleaning chores can be easily handled without these toxic products. Everyday ingredients like baking soda, vinegar, salt, lemon juice, vegetable oil, soap, borax, hydrogen peroxide and washing soda can do the job as they did in olden days. Consumer demand and recognition of the hazards of many chemical ingredients are leading more companies to manufacture less toxic cleaning products.The ingredients contained in conventional petrochemical-based cleaning products are not usually listed on labels.  Many, but not all, less-toxic products will have ingredients listed on their labels.  Following is a list of some of the most common toxic chemicals found in household cleaning products; however there are many others.For recommendations on products or for more information, please download the guide at www.lesstoxicguide.ca