Managing Environmental Toxins in the Home

We spend so much time think­ing about what we put IN our bod­ies, but what about every­thing that lives AROUND our bod­ies? Indoor air qual­i­ty, per­son­al care prod­ucts, clean­ing sup­plies, and elec­tron­ics can cause con­sid­er­able tox­ic expo­sure. Clean­ing up the envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins in and around my house has been a per­son­al goal of mine over the past few years but often when I have tried to “greeni­fy” my clean­ing rou­tine, I end­ed up bewil­dered and con­fused. The idea of mix­ing and cre­at­ing our own clean­ing prod­ucts seemed like it was much more trou­ble that it is worth. But fear not, I’m here to tell you that, just like adding more greens to our diet, there are a few sim­ple tweaks that you can make it quite easy to green up your clean­ing routine.

First of all, try to avoid dis­pos­able prod­ucts when­ev­er pos­si­ble. While they may be good in a pinch and save a lit­tle bit of time, dis­pos­able wipes, paper tow­els and oth­er throw away one-use prod­ucts real­ly do add up in our land­fills AND increase air pol­lu­tion from the plants where they were cre­at­ed. You know what is real­ly absorbent for spills, and works real­ly well as a soft clean­ing rag that is easy to wash, plus is pret­ty inex­pen­sive to pur­chase? A pack­age of plain, white cloth dia­pers. Yep, dia­pers. If that feels too weird, you can opt for a pack­age of plain, white tow­els, too!

Next, ease your­self in to cre­at­ing your own clean­ing prod­ucts as you need them. You would be amazed at what you can do with vine­gar, lemon juice, and bak­ing soda! Don’t feel like you need to run into your kitchen and throw away every clean­ing prod­uct you own this instant. Start with the ones you use the most, and have a DIY recipe ready for when your cur­rent all-stars run out. Here is a great web­site for green clean­ing recipes and advice: Nat­ur­al Clean­ing Tips & Recipes | Well­ness Mama

Despite our best DIY efforts, most of us will need to pur­chase some clean­ing prod­ucts at some point, so you want to be armed with knowl­edge to make an informed pur­chase. Luck­i­ly, my pals at the Envi­ron­men­tal Work­ing Group have us covered…again! (No, I’m not affil­i­at­ed with the EWG in any way shape or form…I just think they’re fab­u­lous and I’m so grate­ful for the con­sumer guides they offer!). Check out EWG’s Guide to Healthy Clean­ing before you head to the store, and be sure to recy­cle the pack­ag­ing when you’re finished.

Last­ly, don’t over­look the pow­er of plants — both in and out of the body! Michael Pol­lan famous­ly said, “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.” We can take this lit­tle quip of easy, straight­for­ward eat­ing guid­ance and apply it to the envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins sur­round­ing all of us. Not only do plants pro­vide us with vit­a­mins, min­er­als, fiber, and ener­gy, and don’t need a lab­o­ra­to­ry to grow, but they are also mas­ter detox­i­fiers. Accord­ing to this NASA study, indoor house­plants are a major path­way for chem­i­cal removal and “plants can play a major role in removal of organ­ic chem­i­cals from indoor air.” So next time you head to the farm­ers mar­ket or your local nurs­ery, con­sid­er bring­ing home an Aloe Vera plant, Peace Lily, Eng­lish Ivy or Spi­der Plant. This is one pur­chase that may let you breathe just a lit­tle bit deeper.