Filed under: Shaklee, environment, green, health, nutrition, wellness | Tags: cleaning, environment, environmentally friendly, green, health, non-toxic, oven cleaner, Shaklee
It’s about that time–Spring cleaning! After the holidays, my oven has seen its share of spills and splatters. Does this look familiar?
<~ My very dirty oven window on the inside
My natural scouring paste does the trick! It has numerous uses: bathroom tile, outdoor grills, stains in the sink, countertops, caked-on food…Someone even found success getting permanent marker off of a wooden coffee table with the scouring paste! It was powerful enough and environmentally-safe enough to be used to scrub the boat decks for Wild Dolphin Project. Jacques Cousteau has also used these environmentally cleaning products onboard the Cousteau Society’s research vessels, the Calypso and Alcyone.
<~With a green miracle scrubber pad, I used the paste and some water (and with my bare hands! Would you dare use a conventional oven cleaner without gloves???) You can see the left side getting considerably clean. And no fumes to choke on!
<~Look at the difference on the left!
Without using any toxic, corrosive chemicals, I’ve ended up with a sparkling clean oven!
For more information on this and other non-toxic, eco-friendly cleaning products, visit my website at www.shaklee.net/healthbynature.
Filed under: Shaklee, environment, green, health, kids, natural, wellness | Tags: asthma, chlorine, cleaning products, environment, EPA, hazardous waste, household chemicals, natural, nontoxic, poisonings, Shaklee, toxic
You’ve probably heard of *sick building syndrome*–people develop health symptoms, often at a workplace, and no identifiable disease or cause is known. If you use conventional household cleaners at home, chances are you are adding toxins to your home and in turn making it *less clean*. As Dr. Herbert Needleman, pediatrician and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center puts it, “We are conducting a vast toxicologic experiment in our society, in which our children and our children’s children are the experimental subject.”
We generally spend 90% of our time indoors. Newer homes and buildings are sealed up tightly, which is good economically in terms of heating and cooling costs. However, inadequate ventilation increases the concentration of *indoor air pollution*–which the E.P.A. reports is up to five times higher than outdoors.
In addition to elevated concentration of household chemicals in our air, women are particularly at risk, because we often spend long periods of time working with potentially toxic chemicals, and research suggests that women’s physiology is more conducive to absorbing such chemicals. We have seen dramatic increases in the rates of asthma in women over the past decade, and longer exposure to a myriad of household chemicals is believed to be responsible. Asthma rates in children under age 5 have more than doubled since 1980, and in that time, some 20,000 new chemicals have been introduced.On average, one in every 13 school-aged children has asthma.
Toxic chemicals in the home also pose a poison risk. Chlorine is the number one cause of child poisonings in the U.S., and is an ingredient in several common household cleaners.Aside from poisonings, 150 chemicals found in many homes can be linked to allergies, birth defects, cancer and psychological disorders.
These household items also have a negative impact on our environment. Common cleaners like chlorine bleach, oven cleaners, toilet bowl cleaners and more are classified by the E.P.A. as household hazardous waste, and when disposed of improperly, can pollute the environment and pose a threat to our health. The average U.S. household generates over 20 pounds of hazardous waste every year!
The National Institutes of Health Household Products Database is a useful resource to determine exactly what harmful chemicals are contained in the products you are currently using, as well as those chemicals’ toxicity and health information. You can locate this information at http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/ingredients.htm.
So what can you, as consumers, do? First, be sure and properly dispose of harmful products. Dumping harmful chemicals down drains or in toilets has a negative impact on the environment. Second, find better, safer choices. To learn which products can replace your existing, harmful, chemical-laden ones, use this checklist and see what safer, powerful, alternative products you can replace your toxic ones with.
