Chemical Hazards of Household Products

For this blog, I was assigned to discuss the chemical hazards and human health problems that arise from chemicals used in common personal and household care products. Now, if you’re like most people, including myself, you may have never really put any thought into the chemical regulation and safety behind chemicals in products from sunscreens to bathroom cleaners. Surprisingly enough, with some research, I discovered that there is great worry, conflict, and controversy over the regulation of household care products. In fact, I found out that current laws regulating industrial chemicals commonly used in household products rarely requires companies to provide the federal government with adequate information about their safety. This is why many environmentalists would agree that the country’s main chemical safety law- the Toxic Substances Control Act- is flawed.

         According to www.salon.com, the burden of this flawed safety law rests almost entirely on the federal government. Companies must alert the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before manufacturing or importing new chemicals. But after that, it is the E.P.A.’s job to review academic or industry data, or use computer modeling, to determine whether a new chemical poses risks. With that being stated, companies are not required to give any safety information when they notify the EPA about a new chemical, and they rarely do it voluntarily, though the E.P.A. can later request data if it can show there is a potential risk. If the E.P.A. does not take steps to block the new chemical within 90 days or suspend review until a company provides any requested data, the chemical is by default given a green light.

As a result of current laws, a vast majority of chemicals in use today have never been independently tested for safety. The present-day ‘safe until proven dangerous’ system of screening chemicals used in household products is an open window for companies to sell unsafe products to the general public.

Okay, so if you’re like me, you’re still saying, “I’m not buying it, how often can dangerous chemicals really be overseen? And even if they are overseen, how harmful can they be?” Well, An online safety and disclosure guide released by the Environmental Working Group in September 2012 gave cleaning products made by Clorox, SC Johnson and Reckitt Benckiser and hundreds of other companies failing grades and found more than half of the 2,000 household cleaners reviewed are potentially harmful to human health. Some of the many hazards of the chemicals used consist of concern to children’s health (due to reproductive or developmental effects), neurotoxic effects, and respiratory problems.

Three common chemicals found in household products are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), ammonia, and bleach, all of which, can react to produce dangerous indoor pollutants. When these chemicals are released they contribute to respiratory problems, allergic reactions, and headaches. Also, studies have shows that these chemicals negatively affect people who have asthma and other respiratory issues, and that there is a link between using these chemicals, and having respiratory illnesses. Some products that contain VOCs are air spray products, air fresheners, chlorine bleach, detergent, dry cleaning chemicals, and furniture and floor polish. One safe way to avoid dangerous exposure to these chemicals is to never mix bleach or any bleach containing product with any ammonia containing product, as the gases combine and can cause chronic breathing problems and even death.

Recent research has found that even natural fragrances in cleaning products, particularly in air fresheners, may react with high levels of ozone from indoor sources, like some air cleaning devices, or from outdoor air to form formaldehyde and dangerous fine particles indoors. Ozone is a harmful, but invisible, gas that worsens asthma and other lung diseases. Particles are also common air pollutants that can worsen asthma and other lung diseases and risk heart attacks and stroke. Both ozone and particles can be life threatening.

For the second portion of this assignment, I’m going to choose a household product that is currently in my house, and that contains at least one of the chemicals I mentioned above. After that, I will discover the alternatives to this product.

Okay now… I’m not trying to cheat…. But the product that I picked was…. Yes that’s right! Bleach! Oddly enough, my family doesn’t have too many household products (which I just discovered), so I had to pick the plain old bleach. Now, I never personally use bleach, but what I do know is that a good alternative to using bleach for cleaning floors, showers, bathtubs, and sinks is warm water and soap. And, if you need a good scrub down on some rough areas, you can use baking soda, which for some odd reason cleans anything (also, if 
you need to clean glass, you can use a mix of vinegar and water). As 
I said, I personal always use soap and water, or baking soda, which act as perfect alternatives, not to mention, they are much more safe, and way more inexpensive. I guess that goes to show how people often times overlook the simple ingredients to cleaning, after all, most people wouldn’t even have to go to the store to find soap or baking soda.