How Safe is Your Home?
The Environmental Protection Agency warns that many common household cleaning products have been classified as a health hazard. You can’t assume they’re safe just because they haven’t yet shown a noticeable effect. It can often take years of exposure to these products before they affect your health. If you have any doubts, consider this shocking truth: The same toxic chemicals that are unregulated in the home are actually banned in the workplace by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA)
How to Protect Your Family’s Health
Always read the labels of cleaning products. If they read POISON, DANGER, CAUTION or WARNING, you can call your Department of Public Works and ask how to dispose of these products. However, the mere absence of warnings does not by any means guarantee that the product is safe. The bad news is that the makers of cleaning products are not required to list all toxic ingredients, nor even to test them to determine whether or not they’re safe for you to use. Labels may also list only the immediate effects, with no warnings whatever concerning long term effects like cancer. The only good news is that makers of safe cleaning products generally do list ingredients on the label, since it’s to their advantage to do so.
