There’s only one reason to clean green: safety. Think about it. Conventional cleaners contain chemicals like nitrilotriacetic acid, which the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality believes can contribute to the development of cancer, or acetone, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) includes on its hazardous wastes list. And then there are glycol ethers, phenolic compounds, and petrochemicals—all of which have been linked to a range of health problems from birth defects and miscarriages to brain damage. Even chlorine, a naturally occurring chemical found in a number of household products, causes concern. In detergents, it volatizes, which means that it contaminates the air you breathe when it interacts with oxygen in dishwashers and laundry machines.
Toxic By Law
You’d think it’d be easy enough to avoid such chemicals by checking the label of any household cleaner, but companies aren’t required by law to list the contents of their products. (Doing so would divulge trade secrets, companies claim.) Nor are they asked to test the long-term health effects, if any, of the chemicals used in their products. Finding out whether or not the contents of Windex or Ajax are harmful, let alone precisely what those ingredients are, can be frustrating—maybe the trouble isn’t worth it. No harm can come from such low levels of exposure, right?
Small Amounts of Toxins, Large Risks
It’s tempting to think trace amounts of toxins aren’t harmful, but the EPA has found that it takes just 26 seconds after exposure for chemicals to be found in every organ of the body. And while that fact might have you embarking on 22-second spring cleaning sessions, there are longer term considerations to keep in mind, such as where those toxins end up. If not your organs, where else?
How about our streams and rivers? When you rinse your bathtub after using Ajax, its chemicals eventually drain into our sewage system; when you wash your car with a conventional cleaner, it bleeds into the environment as runoff. Over time, chemicals build up, which is hard on Mother Earth because a cleaning agent like nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPE) degrades so slowly. In fact, the Sierra Club has said that NPEs become more, not less, toxic as they degrade.
And conventional cleaners cause negative health effects for you, too. According to a study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), our bodies may be more vulnerable to toxins than we thought. Says Jane Houlihan, EWG’s vice president, “It's likely that there’s an even higher burden of disease from our exposures to different chemicals because we are exposed to so many simultaneously.”
Given the danger that conventional cleaners pose to you, your family and pets, as well as the planet, cleaning green with products that are phosphate-free or whose ingredients biodegrade yields the healthiest option for you—and everyone else.
Learn More
Just what’s under the kitchen sink?The Household Products Database can help you find out.
Check to see which household cleaners have gotten the Green Seal.
For the all-in-one source, what’s easier than a guide to less toxic products?
