Are There Any Really Safe Chemical Cleaners?
- what makes some cleaners unsafe - for us and the environment?
Safe chemical cleaners? Is this an oxymoron?
There are thousands of products on the market that clean and shine our homes. Many of them are fairly toxic, that is some of the ingredients included are toxic, to a degree - to us, to the environment, or both.
Are we stuck with this?
Is this a fair trade-off that we just have to accept for the sake of good hygiene?
And what's wrong with these products, anyhow? Are they all so bad - or are some of them acceptably safe for us to use regularly?
Here we try to draw a distiction between the safe and the not-so-safe and outline just what it is that makes some products unsafe.
Safe chemical cleaners are everywhere
The good news about safe chemical cleaners is that they are everywhere!
There are lots of safe chemical cleaners and you've probably got some in your cupboard already. In fact, some of them are probably in your food cupboard.
Products such as , sodium bicarbonate, and salt are all safe chemical cleaners.
They are all "chemicals", in that they all have a chemical structure. Salt for example, is NaCl or sodium chloride. No-one is afraid of salt! We aren't exactly anxious about its effects upon our health, except for when we use it to .
The point is that not all chemicals are dangerous or detrimental to the environment. Many chemicals are relatively harmless when used correctly. (But even salt can be harmful in the wrong place, or in excessive amounts. Salt used to prevent ice on roads can have a bad effect on local vegetation, for example.)
However, we're being bombarded with hundreds of new, complex chemicals. Every year more are licensed for sale.
Although there are stringent tests conducted by laboratories, there are still a good many issues to raise concern.
So, what is in these products to raise concerns?
And what are the effects of these chemicals?
Not-so-safe chemical cleaners
Safe chemical cleaners
Here are some of the problems associated with chemical cleaners. I'm talking about the complex kind that you buy in the supermarket with the whizzy sales pitch from a well-funded advertising campaign.
(For more on safe chemical cleaners please see the links in . There you'll find information on many of the commoner green cleaning products.)
Direct Health Effects
Some cleaning products contain toxic chemicals, which not only kill aquatic life but also harm humans. Ammonia and sodium hypochlorite can irritate the lungs, for example. They are not recommended for people with heart conditions and chronic respiratory problems.
Some cleaning products may contain parabens as preservatives. This group of chemicals has been found in breast tissue and has been linked with cancer.
Many people may be exposed to these chemicals unwittingly.
There is also an issue with combinations of cleaning products. Household blea...
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