The real dirt on clean.

You know that good, healthy feeling you get when you’ve just
cleaned house? Sorry to spoil it, but you may have just made
your home dirtier. Just take a look at these statistics.
• Over 90% of poison exposures happen at home.
• Common chlorine bleach is the #1 household chemical
involved in poisoning.
• Organic pollutants, found in many common cleaners and
even air fresheners, are found at levels 2 to 5 times higher
inside your home than out.
• A person who spends 15 minutes cleaning scale off shower
walls could inhale three times the “acute one-hour exposure
limit” for glycol ether-containing products set by the California
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
• Common cleaners give off fumes that can potentially
increase the risk of kids developing asthma, the most
common chronic childhood disease.
• 1 in 13 school-aged children has asthma. Rates in children
under five have increased more than 160% from 1980 – 1994.
• Children are highly vulnerable to chemical toxicants. Pound
for pound of body weight, children drink more water, eat more
food, and breathe more air than adults. The implication of this
is that children will have substantially heavier exposures than
adults to any toxicants that are present in water, food, or air.
• If your home is anything like the average U.S. home, you
generate more than 20 pounds of household hazardous waste
each year (the EPA designates toilet cleaners, tub and tile
cleaners, oven cleaners, and bleach as hazardous waste).

Chemical ingredients to look out for:
• Sodium hydroxide
• Hydrochloric acid
• Butyl cellosolve
(2-Butoxyethanol)
• Formaldehyde
• Bleach (sodium hypochlorite)
• Ammonia
• Sulfamic acid
• Petroleum distillates
• Sulfuric acid
• Lye (potassium hydroxide)
• Morpholine