No one wants to live next to a toxic waste site.  Yet most homes harbor the same chemicals.  Why might lead, mercury, asbestos, arsenic, and industrial solvents be in your home and also in your body?  The answer is that no one is testing building materials and consumer products for personal or planetary safety.   The Consumer Product Safety Commission is too busy testing car seats and truck tires to focus on the Pandora’s Box of chemical ingredients in our consumer products.  The result is that you can be living amidst levels of contamination that our society spends millions on to clean up if they occur at toxic waste sites. 

Want to know how you can be a safe shopper and detox your home?  Follow this quick and easy 10-step primer:  

1)  Test your home for what’s really toxic:  test your indoor air for radon and install  a carbon monoxide detector.  These gases can kill you.  Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer and carbon monoxide silently poisons hundreds in their sleep every year.  You don’t need to test for mold in the air because you can see or smell it when it grows to become a problem.

2)  Remove toxins from your drinking water: install a water filter made of activated carbon on your kitchen tap if you are on a public water supply.  That’s because it will contain chlorine byproducts such as chloroform which are weak carcinogens and present some reproductive risks.  Buying bottled water isn’t necessarily a healthier solution.  

If you have your own well, test the water for a full suite of chemicals when you move in and then every 2-5 years thereafter depending on what you live near.  Nobody else will do the testing for you.  Groundwater contamination from landfills, gas stations, farms and old factories is all too common. 

3)  Cut down on toxins in your food:  Eat less red meat,  choose low fat dairy and follow federal and state advisories on fish consumption.  This will help you to avoid mercury, dioxin, PCBs, pesticides and animal hormones.  Regarding fish, eat less swordfish, shark, tilefish and king mackerel (none if you are pregnant) and eat more of light tuna (as opposed to white tuna which is 3 times higher in mercury), cod, haddock and wild salmon.

4)  Buy greener cleaning products : our homes are more air tight than ever, we spend more time indoors, and asthma rates are rising.  That is a formula for overexposure to chemicals in cleaning products such as bleach, ammonia, air freshener, furniture polish and stain remover.  Read labels and look for certified green products.

5)  Make sure your home is lead-safe:  This heavy metal was banned from paint and gasoline decades ago, yet there are still over 300,000 children in the US caary around unhealthy levels of Pb.  with too much lead in their bodies.   If you live in a home built before 1978, encapsulate or completely remove any paint that is within reach of young children.  This is especially important in window wells where the paint is always chipping.  Never remodel or repaint your home with contractors who are not following lead-safe procedures. 

6)  Use less pesticide around the home: the spray can of bug killer leaves a pesticide residue on carpets and plush toys for weeks.  That’s like giving your child a daily dose of pesticide.  The chemical lawn treatment will spread some pesticide into the home, once again giving small children the biggest dose.  Scrubbing vegetables and buying organic is fine to remove pesticides from your diet, but the biggest exposures are from what you use around the home and yard.

7)  Safeguard your indoor air:  avoid products that produce a heavy odor or have high levels of gaseous chemicals – these include oil-based paints, varnishes, adhesives, furniture and floor polishes, and high strength stain removers, and believe it or not, moth balls.  If you must use these (some are very useful) do so in the warmer months with plenty of open windows and fresh air.  However, you should never use moth balls as there are safer ways to moth proof your clothing. Dry-cleaned clothes hang onto the cleaning agent, perchloroethylene (PERC) for several days.  This industrial solvent is toxic and will contaminate your home’s air.  Remove the plastic and leave the garments hanging in a covered porch or breezeway for several days before bringing them into your home.  Note:  an air purifier is not a good solution as most are not very effective. 

8)  Cut back on hormonal agents (endocrine disruptors):  use less cosmetics, body lotion and deodorant during pregnancy – these contain phthalates which can impair a baby boy’s development in the womb.  Synthetic estrogens to watch out for are parabens in lotions, benzophenones in sunblock and bis-phenol A in rigid clear plastic water bottles.  These may be a risk for breast cancer. 

9)  Seal your backyard deck:  arsenical pesticides were the typical pressure-treatment  for outdoor decking prior to 2005.  Arsenic leaches from these decks, playscapes and treehouses to contaminate the wood and soil underneath.  Seal the deck every year with an oil-based stain that seeps into the wood and prevents the arsenic from leaching out.  

10)Be aware of toxins in the neighborhood:  chemicals from gas stations, landfills, factories, dry cleaners, farms, and garden shops and move underground ¼ mile or more and threaten nearby homes.  Some of these chemicals can form a gas and seep into basements.  Find out from your local health department or state environmental agency if pollution has occurred at these sites and what testing has been done. 

Follow these steps and you’ll turn  your home into a safe haven rather than a toxic waste site. While scientists don’t understand why rates of asthma, certain cancers and nerve disorders have been on the rise, toxins in the home environment are a contributing factor that you’ll want to eliminate.   



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