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"Household cleaning products are
among some of the most toxic substances we encounter daily. In one
study conducted over a 15 year period, women who stayed home all day
had a 54 percent higher death rate from cancer than woman who had
jobs away from the home." |
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Many of today’s household products are considered toxic household products but, are great for one thing. They do the job, and they do the job well. They take off the dirt and grease, they lift the dust and they shine the sink, the bathtub, the toilet. They get the crud out of the oven, no problem. They clear the drains, they clean the windows, the carpets, the lino. Yes, I admit they do the job. They do the job well. But, at what cost? The problem is that many of them are TOXIC household products. Toxic means poison. And some of the ingredients are either proven or suspected of causing illnesses in the long term, such as cancer, as well as immediate reactions. The most dangerous are corrosive drain cleaners, oven cleaners, and acidic toilet bowl cleaners according to the Washington Toxics Coalition.
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Other toxic household products produce dangerous fumes. The average person is not a chemist. So for instance, how would they know that you must never mix chlorine bleach with ammonia? These two chemicals together, when combined, can react to form lung damaging gases. With the variety of household cleaning products available today, it is easy to inadvertently use them in combination, producing harmful results. Fragrances are added to most products as well, especially laundry detergents and fabric softeners. See our article and related links on fragrance. |
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The Organic Consumers Association, says, “Other ingredients in cleaners may have low ACUTE toxicity but contribute to long-term health effects, such as cancer or hormone disruption. Some all-purpose cleaners contain the sudsing agents diethanolamine (DEA) and triethanolamine (TEA). When these substances come into contact with nitrites, often present as undisclosed preservatives or contaminants, they react to form nitrosamines - carcinogens that readily penetrate the skin. 1,4-dioxane, another suspected carcinogen, may be present in cleaners made with ethoxylated alcohols. Butyl cellosolve (also known as ethylene glycol monobutyl ether), which may be neurotoxic (or cause damage to the brain and nervous system), is also present in some cleaners. |
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Thirty some years ago I was a lab technician, working for a pharmaceutical company in Toronto. In fact, I worked for several companies. When I think about it now, I was aware even as a young thing in my twenties, of the effects of chemicals on the body and those permeating from household cleaning products. Some of my colleagues would use certain chemicals in open areas of the lab, instead of under the fume hood. It just seemed like common sense that these chemicals were toxic, and that when we breathed them in, they would negatively affect us. Even then I could not understand that cavalier attitude. Once, my colleagues and I were asked to each choose a subject about which we would deliver a half hour lecture to our workmates. I had no trouble in deciding to research and talk about "Industrial Hazards". I wanted my colleagues to 'get the message'. Here I am all these years later, researching the hazards of chemicals. This time, however, I have been led to a source of chemicals I would never have dreamed of back then; those found in household cleaning products, cosmetics, and personal care products. |
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The funny thing is, that some of the chemicals in these household cleaning products and these other products, are the same ones I wanted to be used under the fume hood way back then! What?! Yes - sad but true. Did you ever hear anyone make the following statement? Have you yourself? At one time even I did! Holy smokes, yes I did.
What could be healthier
than that? Only cookies baking in the oven would give you a warmer,
better feeling. Fragrances are a topic unto themselves. When you see 'fragrance' on a label, what that actually is, is a combination of up to maybe 600 chemicals. Now, if fragrance with its hundreds of chemicals is just ONE of the components of our household cleaning products, what ELSE is in them? More important, what are they DOING to us? Today we are exposed to more chemicals that any generation before us. We come into contact with over 500 chemicals each day - many of which are toxic, disease promoting. This page is not going to give you a lot of technical information (look through the links at the bottom of this page for that), rather I want to talk in plain, common sense terms about our everday lives. Let's take a look at what happens when we clean our homes with regular, off the shelf household cleaning products. Let's start with dusting and polishing the furniture - perhaps the coffee table. You spray the furniture polish on the table (this will make it shine). Or, you may pour some from a bottle onto your rag (are you wearing gloves?).The spray goes into the air and you breathe it in, but it smells pretty good, so who cares? It 'smells clean'. |
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you spray or pour it, you rub it into the table. It shines and there is
not a speck of dust to be found. There is no dust on the table, no fingerprints.
Beautiful. I will admit it works like a charm.
But wait a minute. What IS on the table? There is no dust remaining. But what does remain? The furniture polish! You did not rub it OFF the table. You rubbed it INTO the table. Your house is starting to look and smell 'clean' already. After all, isn't that what household cleaning products are supposed to do? Now the kids come along and kneel down beside the coffee table, nose about 6 inches above it. They make it their own private playground. |
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Consider this - just a couple of the ingredients:
Long after, the vapors are rising from using these manufactured household cleaning products, and they contribute to the indor air pollution within your home. Everyone present is breathing them in. The residue remains on the table and those little arms, our children's, are absorbing the chemicals from those household cleaning products right through their skin. If you have glass tables, the same thing is happening with the glass cleaner you are using to make them shine. But it's just glass cleaner, right? It's a nice blue color in most cases, you can even see right through it and it sure smells clean. Everyone uses it. Here are a couple of ingredients in most mainstream glass cleaners, and what they might do to you.
OK - already, you have chemicals floating in the air and continuing to off gas from the table. They will absorb through your skin when you make contact, And so far, ALL you have done is clean the coffee table! Then you go on to clean your bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms and so on. At the end of the day, there is such a cocktail of chemical vapors wafting through your house. You are breathing them in absorbing them through your skin. You are putting your food on the counter where these toxic chemicals remain from all that good cleaning. The kids are playing on the floor with the residue from the floor cleaner, and the vapors they are emitting. In fact, they will last way past the day you cleaned the house. We sit on the toilet seat that just was cleaned with that 'fresh smelling, dirt cutting substance in the spray bottle - great for absorbing that one right through our skin (the biggest organ of our body). The household cleaning products we use coat everything in our homes as we clean the surfaces. They continue for a time to off gas, and of course, as we touch the surfaces, they are absorbing into our systems through our skin. No wonder experts are saying that our indoor air pollution is far worse than the outside pollution! You are not only breathng the vapors, but you are absorbing these compounds through your skin. I switched to an organic cleaning product about two years ago. I had tried several different 'natural' products but they still affected me by way of headaches and respiratory problems - many from the smell they emitted. Lots of times a product will be marketed as organic, but it is not. Some are, some are not and it is really had to figure out which is which. It's what we CAN'T feel from these products that is the most dangerous of all. At least when you have an outward allergy, as I do, you learn to stay away from products containing dangerous chemicals. People who are 'not bothered' by their use, think they' re not affected. False. We are all affected whether we 'feel' it or not. I still hadn't found my 'perfect product', until one day I was speaking to a business acquaintance and she told me that she and her partners had just brought a product into North America from Britain - Morris Green Clean. Morris Green Clean is my dream product. We believe that it can replace about 99% of the cleaners in your cupboard and it is even FOOD GRADE! We have not felt the need to go out and find numerous cleaning products to feature on this site. Morris Green Clean fills the bill and we were a long time finding it. Morris Green Clean is also very inexpensive. An 8 sachet package for $19.99 will last you a very long time. Click on the graphic below. There, you will find lots of information about Morris Green Clean, as well as the whole topic of the toxins in household cleaners. You have nothing to lose by giving it a try.
There is some really good information at the sites. Check them out. Emissions
from Cleaning Products How
Toxic Are Your Household Cleaning Supplies? Cancer
Prevention Alert Cancer
Prevention Coalition – Carcinogens at Home Hazardous
Household Products |
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