Chemical Cleaners In Our Homes. Do We Really Want Them?

This is a topic that is close to my heart. I switched from regular cleaners to vinegar and bicarb a few years ago for no other reason except to save money. My only motivation was financial.

It wasn’t until about a year or so ago, when I started investigating personal care products, that I began reading about the toxicity of the products that we use in our homes. Now with our first child on the way, I’m becoming even more concerned about the safety of our everyday products. Dirt I can live with, after all we seem to have survived dirt now for a couple of hundred thousand years, it is the chemicals that concern me.

As a side note, my eczema disappeared once we stopped using the last of the mainstream products and went totally natural. We’re not having the other allergic responses we used to have either.

I was recently alerted to this Canadian documentary about everyday cleaning products in our homes. Even though I had read a lot about the topic there were still a few things in this video that surprised me. The video is about 20 minutes long, but well worth watching.

If the information in this video concerns you, or you would like to do your own research and draw your own conclusions then I’ve included a few links that may be helpful.

For more information about household cleaners in the US, the Environmental Working Group has just released their report about cleaning products used in schools and has a useful FAQ about mainstream and natural cleaning products.

And what about Australia? I did some research and contacted several government bodies including the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme, The Australian Competition and Consumer Association, Standards Australia, and looked up information on the Therapeutic Goods Association website (covers disinfectants under TGO 54).

While my research wasn’t exhaustive, and my findings aren’t conclusive, basically I discovered that our regulations in Australia are similar to those on the Canadian video: the only labelling requirements concern specifying dangerous goods, hazardous materials and scheduled poison, as in “seek medical advice if swallowed.” Hazardous material is defined by an immediate response, like burning or poisoning, it does not cover potential long term hazards like carcinogens.

Manufacturers are not required to list the ingredients, testing and safely of ingredients is the onus of the manufacturer and what testing regulations that I could find were regarding the efficacy of the product not the safety of the product. In other words, as with other countries, we can’t rely on our regulatory bodies to ensure the safety these products in our homes.

For more information regarding chemicals in Australia, including links to Material Data Safety Sheets, check out the Australian Government’s National Chemical Information Gateway website. If you’re concerned about what is in your products, contact the manufacturer for a list of ingredients (don’t be surprised if they don’t tell you all the ingredients – it makes it hard to make an informed decision without all of the information) and check out the MDSS for each chemical.

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Have you read these posts?

1. A Cleaner Home with Eco Cleaners
2. tip tuesday–clean your drains chemical free
3. food for thought thursday – rethinking how we build our homes