Clients often ask what cleaning products they should use. That is an individual decision, but I thought I would share how I think about it and a tool that I use.
During my training we learned that 85,000 new chemicals have been released into the environment since World War II. These are used as preservatives or dyes in food, in personal care products, in prescription drugs, and in household cleaners and lawncare products. This article from the company AspenClean, nicely summarizes some of the most harmful chemicals in cleaning products.
We also learned about the concept of total toxic load. Even if a particular product’s ingredients are not singularly harmful, the small daily doses of multiple contaminants we are exposed to have a cumulative detrimental effect on our physiologic pathways and that can eventually impair our health and cause disease.
There are many toxins and chemicals that we can’t reduce our exposure to. If we live in a major city, we are likely to breathe polluted air. Our water is usually provided by our municipality. But, what we use to clean our homes is a variable we can control. And fortunately, we now have many, many less toxic brands to choose from.
To evaluate which brands to buy, I utilize the Environmental Working Group’s Healthy Living App and read articles on their website. EWG produces several consumer guides to help us make informed purchasing decisions and advocates to protect public health. Here are many of articles on cleaning supplies.
In the EWG Healthy Living app you can browse by differnt product types: personal care, food, sunscreens, or household cleaners. After you click on the product type you are interested in exploring, you are then given many different categories within that product type. EWG assigns different ratings to a product based on the ingredients it contains. Ratings range from EWG Verified (meeting the strictest standards) to F (highest concern with potentially significant hazards to health or the enviornment). I try to purchase products that are either EWG Verified or have an A rating.
EWG does not rate every single product and ratings can change over time, so I tend to recheck the app before I buy a new product or replace one that has run out. Here is a look at what I am currently using. I especially like products that are in concentrated form that you add water to (no point in paying for water) or that can be refilled from bulk size packaging.
I will write more about ways to reduce toxins in our environement as well as the body's detoxification processes in future posts. If you find you are using products that contain more toxic ingredients than you would like, you don't necessarily have to throw them all out immediately. You will still be aiding your health by replacing them with less toxic versions when making future purchases.
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