Modern household cleaners are significantly more effective than their predecessors. Synthetic cleaning agents, anti-redeposition agents, bleaches, builders, enzymes and optical brighteners have produced a generation of products that work against more forms of dirt and with less effort than ever before. But in our attempts to get our clothes whiter and homes cleaner, we’ve accepted a plethora of chemicals that pose serious health and environmental concerns.

What happens when I use traditional cleaning products?

More than you might realize! Today’s conventional cleaning products are made from an eye-popping number of toxic chemicals. When we use these products in our homes, the chemicals they contain can stay suspended in the air for hours or even days after the product has been used, and can easily be inhaled. These chemicals may also remain behind as residues on surfaces that include kitchen and bathroom counters. In this way, they can be easily absorbed through the skin. In addition, when chemicals from different cleaners accidentally come into contact with each other, they sometimes react to form new toxic substances. This unintentional mixing can magnify potential health effects.

Each year there are more than 5 million household product poisonings reported, most of them involving children. With all these chemicals, it’s no wonder that the EPA found the air quality in our homes to be 5 times to 10 times more toxic than the air outside, and typically contaminated by anywhere from 20 to 150 different pollutants. Much of this pollution comes from petrochemical cleaners.

Don’t product labels warn me about hazardous ingredients?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Though cleaners are the only household products regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission under the Federal Hazardous Substances Labeling Act, they’re not required to reveal their ingredients. These ingredients are considered “trade secrets” and manufacturers don't have to disclose them. The consumer has little to go on beyond the warning labels manufacturers are required to put on their products. While mandated signal words like DANGER, WARNING and CAUTION give consumers a general idea that the product contains hazardous chemicals, that's pretty much all they do. A New York Poison Control Center study found 85% of product warning labels to be inadequate.

What's the solution?

Whenever possible, use cleaning products that contain only natural ingredients. Stay away from products that don't disclose all ingredients.

photo: Arria Belli