Toxic Household Quiz

If you're interested in the effect of toxins in the home, and what you can do about them, you probably want to try the Toxic Household Quiz to see how much you know about what we're doing to our bodies, our family and our planet.

The fact is that we need to change what we're doing. Toxic cleaning product companies started reaching out to consumers with mass advertising in the 1950s and we bought into it. Now nearly every home has products with chemicals that are not tested for human safety, especially 1-3 generations down the road. Now we're seeing the effects of these chemicals on our children & children's children, and watching the decline of human health in the U.S. and other so-called advanced nations. And with the expansion of modernization programs into third-world countries we are ensuring that those giant chemical companies will bring their toxic products into all countries, to their benefit and the global environment's expense.

If you're already ready to change what you're doing, see: The Price of Clean-- and just answer that one question in the quiz.

Namaste!

Miscellaneous Update

I have been hard-pressed for time lately, as business for my web design company picks up. Here's my latest updates:

I've used the face product kit, and I really like it. It's not perfumed, my flaky skin stopped flaking, I have less pimples and even I could tell that my face tone was more even after. I did definitely look younger. At least to me :) Very nice stuff. I'm not wrinkled enough to notice an 88% reduction in my visible wrinkles, at 38 years old. :)

The fairies are still at work in my dishwasher. Even my roommates appreciate them. We'll leave milk and cookies in the dishwasher for them. I can't eat the cookies anyway.

I love the way my hair looks and feels -- rather than limp and lifeless, it's shiny and has terrific body. Either that or this is the best haircut I've ever had. Naah -- it's the shampoo & conditioner, because it's the actual texture of my hair that's better.

I gave in and cleaned the rest of the range hood :) No one else took me up on the challenge. (I had cleaned a small part of the range hood with the degreaser, hoping someone would get annoyed and clean the rest....I am not the world's best housekeeper, it's not my calling.)

I wrote a serious article about toxic cleaners on my website.

Next I'll write an article about my experiences with asthma. I was diagnosed asthmatic last fall, 2 weeks after an asthma attack almost put me into the hospital -- without health insurance! My resistance to go the hospital could have killed me, but since I lived and managed my asthma attack without transport, I've (financially) saved my family. An emergency room visit would have been a disaster. It's not fun to be uninsured, welcome to the norm for the middle classes, especially self-employed. 2 weeks later, my health coverage finally went through and I could see a doctor and get medication. One really really scary asthma attack is enough for a lifetime.

If I end up losing my health coverage again, I now have a health plan option to check out through Your Green Club. Thank goodness there's an inexpensive alternative. As my income increases, it's inevitable that I'll lose my current coverage.

I apologize for the disjointed email: I wanted to make sure to write something before I bury my nose back into a job proposal again. Thanks for visiting!

Another terrific product line...laundry care!

Ok, a second load of dishes, with a bowl with oatmeal from the day before glued to it, nested in the middle of other bowls to make double sure the dishwasher detergent is making a difference proves to me that I wasn't dreaming about the tiny hands at work in my dishwasher.

So on to laundry. I can't believe how little it takes to wash the laundry. I'm going to have to try the brightener again, but the liquid HE compatible detergent uses very little to wash a whole lot. Everything comes out smelling fantastic -- not heavily perfumed, just lightly scented. The reason I'm going to have to try the brightener again is that I didn't follow the instructions. :( I tried putting it in with the detergent in the compartment and it just caked on the bottom of the compartment, hardly putting any into my load of whites at all. Next time I'll dissolve it in water like the instructions say to. They certainly know best and I shouldn't second-guess them. I'm hoping that they'll erase my son's bad habit of wiping his hands and face on his shirts.

I also used the dryer sheets which I like because when you're done you're left with recyclable paper rather than some nasty man-made material you're not sure if it belongs in the garbage or in the toxic waste facility.

Clean clothes that smell great -- at 1 ounce of liquid detergent per load. An environmentalist's dream.

Dishwasher concentrate powder is like a hundred tiny hands in the machine!

I'm not a big fan of electric dishwashers. Energy-star-water-conserving or not, if they don't clean the dishes, you have to hand-wash the dishes yourself.

We got a dishwasher when we moved in. My partner hates hand-washing the dishes. I don't like hand-washing dishes, but I like hand-washing them after wasting water and electricity in the dishwasher even more. So after 1-2 years of using the dishwasher it started to leave a film of icky white stuff on the dishes, especially the top of cups, and hardly cleaning the silverware. Nothing I wanted touching my or my children's food. So I end up hand-washing the dishes. Bummer.

My roommate, the anal one who does most of the cleaning and hand dish-washing, is of basically the same opinion I am. If you have to re-wash, pre-wash, soak, spit, rinse and shine by hand, why the heck are you using the electronic dishwasher in the first place?

My partner doggedly insists on using the dishwasher. Me and my roommate wash by hand. It's a neverending battle. He's probably right that the residue and water sitting in the machine does it no good, but running it just for the sake of running it isn't good either.

That experience was with typical bulk-store-bought Members' Mark (Sam's Club) detergent -- your results may vary, mine stank. I bought it figuring that at least if I had to buy evil chemical waste producing dishwashing detergent, I would buy it in bulk and save waste on the garbage end of the cycle. Does anyone want a nearly-full container of conventional powdered dishwashing detergent? I didn't think so.

I may have a complete change of heart about the electronic dish washer. You see, I got the terrific starter kit for the green household cleaning products (and blogged about said green cleaning kit), and it came with automatic dishwasher concentrate powder. My partner had the conventional stuff out ready to use it, but he didn't run the dishwasher last night. I thought to run it this morning, and looked at the detergent sitting on top of the dishwasher. No Way, I thought. I put that box of detergent away, and I ran the load of dishes with the new eco-friendly dishwasher powder. One scoop in each cup -- it's a small scoop -- 2 teaspoon scoop. So 4 teaspoons of concentrate went into the machine.



And nothing's wrong with the dishes. They're mostly dry, we air dry the dishes -- there's a couple drops of CLEAR water on the rim of the bowl.

They don't smell like a dirty swimming pool.

They shine.

There are no spots -- I'm not a spot hawk, so don't quote me on this one, but I don't see the streaks and spots I've been seeing from the conventional detergent.

Everything is clean.

Everything smells safe.

I'm amazed. It's like a hundred tiny fairies were at work in my dishwasher making everything perfect. I had to blog about it immediately and let you know. I'm tempted to wake said partner and roommate and rush them into the kitchen to show them. That's why I have to blog. :) They'd kill me.

I hate having to say it, but your results may vary. Maybe we didn't have oatmeal this week. I don't know, but I know this load of dishes came out exactly the way I want them to!

Getting Greener & Cleaner

My big green cleaning kit finally arrived. I've been waiting on the edge of my seat. I now have a 2nd bottle of the all-purpose concentrated cleaning solution -- and the hand "soap" is on back-order, but I already bought a bottle several months ago. Since these products last for quite some time, I better batten the hatches and go all out for spring cleaning.

Now my cleaning contingent is complete (see photo) with laundry products on the far left, general cleaning product wipes, then dish products in the center and the general cleaning solution, with all the bottles to fill on the right. In the forefront on the right is the heaviest duty oven cleaning non-toxic stuff, and microfiber towels with measuring instruments in the forefront.

I'm eager to run around my house, do laundry, a load of dishes, fill all the bottles, and generally make a menace of myself cleaning stuff. I spot-cleaned only a part of the oven so I could go "See, it works!" when my partner gets home. I have to do my car windows with the window-strength (2 drops in 16oz water) of the general cleaner. Oh, yeah, the degreaser.... on (part of) the range hood. Yep, that works. One pane of the 2-pane bathroom mirror.... oh yeah, I didn't really want to see myself that clearly yet. Shoot.

I better stop cleaning and go back to work. This way my partner and roommate will get tired of all the half-clean stuff and maybe they'll finish it off -- mu-ha-ha-ha!

It's not REALLY clean if it makes your family sick

I guess I can say it until I'm blue in the face, but I'll say it again. We're intimately connected to our environment. Everything we put into our body, we are putting into our environment. Everything we put into our environment, we're putting into our body.

There's no way to escape this basic fact of nature.

It's true of toxic chemicals, from chemotherapy and household cleaning products (link to Household Products Database by the US National Institutes of Health) to the jet fuel used to get an airplane from one place to another. No matter how far away something is, it's in your environment -- indoor or outdoor -- and it will find you.

The flip side of this is that it doesn't matter who puts it into the environment. If industry does it, it still ends up in our bodies and homes. Neighbors. Friends, parents, children, government, someone on the other side of the planet. We are directly and indirectly responsible for each other's health and well-being.


So, let's start with an easy example. You use toxic household cleaners, and you clean your house. You wash some tile and bathroom cleaner down the sink, toilet, tub drain. It ends up in your cesspool, septic tank, etc. It leaches into the ground, even though it goes through a filtration process and could theoretically biodegrade. These toxic cleansers are not biodegradable, so they leech into the ground, and into the groundwater.

Many of us drink from this groundwater. Or at the very least, we wash our bodies with it. Our skin is our largest organ, and it DOES absorb chemicals. We think of it as a barrier, but it's a barrier that will allow things in. The same chemicals from cleaners with huge warnings on their labels are now in our bathwater. Maybe we drink that water. Maybe we cook with it. It probably isn't the chemicals I put into the water that I wash with. It's probably the neighbor's chemicals. Or someone across town. Or someone in the mountains. The basic point is that it's now in my water supply.

If we can convince our neighbors to change to natural biodegradable cleaning fluids, this wouldn't happen, or, assuming we can't convert everyone, at the very least it would be possible to lessen the impact of these chemicals on our bodies.


But what if we're cleaning with those chemicals. We may be poisoning our neighbors' groundwater, and we're certainly poisoning ourselves (link to a page by the National Organization for Women Foundation - stay at home moms & dads, and babies, beware!). Every spray, sprits, stream or the use of any product with fumes adds to the air pollutants in our homes. We breathe that air. Opening windows only helps a little, the fumes are there, we breathe them in, and it causes us to become sick -- either quickly, or a little at a time over a span of years.

What if we could change it? And still be clean and sanitary? Please join me in changing this. Once you've made the switch, tell your neighbors -- the life you may be saving could be your own. By purchasing environmentally-friendly, biodegradable, so safe you can let your baby and pets crawl on the floor, cleaning products you'll be making a change that makes sense (and cents, but I'll talk about packaging another time).