Years ago, I used to think that if products were allowed to be sold to us as consumers then they must be safe for us to use. I was shocked to learn that this is not true and that many of the products that line the shelves in shops contain ingredients that are harmful to our health. You’re probably familiar with the hazard symbols that appear on some cleaning products, along with word like “poison”, “corrosive” or “irritant.” These hazard symbols warn consumers about acute health hazards associated with a single or short-term exposure to chemicals in the product, but there’s no requirement for manufacturers to warn us about the health and environmental hazards associated with chronic, or long-term, exposure to chemical ingredients in household cleaning products. This is partly due to the fact that these long-term effects have not actually been studied because there are no regulatory requirements for this to occur – scary stuff! When we use these chemicals to clean our home, they linger in the air (and on surfaces) and and we breathe them in. Researchers in the U.S. identified 133 unique volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from a small sample of consumer products, including six … Continue reading Chemical-Free Cleaning