Monday, March 3, 2008

11 Easy Ways to Reduce Noxious Chemicals

Trying to make sense of all the scare-mongering news about the dangers of chemicals, I came up with a short list that is easy to follow and will avoid the most dangerous of them. It's not complete, but you won't break the bank while reducing the ones that are quite common. I wish there was a way to quantify by how much these simple steps reduce the toxic chemicals, but I have no way to tell. I hope it's a lot.


TO REDUCE/AVOID:

DO:

mercury in your body

eat low-mercury fish like tilapia & pollock, rather than eat high-mercury choices like tuna & swordfish.


perchlorate from your tap water (and other chemicals)

filter your water for drinking and cooking.

dust and other bacteria in your house

leave your shoes at the door. Clean up the indoor air which is more polluted than the outdoor air.


toxic gases by cooking in the nonstick pans

chose cast iron pans instead of nonstick.

bisphenol A and other chemicals in your food

do not use processed, canned, or fast foods and never use plastic to warm your food in a microwave. Do not use plastic bottles for feeding your baby, use instead the ones made from glass. Avoid using bottles made from polycarbonate.

pesticides

eat organic vegetables and fruits.

phthalates, parabens, and so many other chemicals found the personal care products

avoid perfumes, cologne, nail polish, and any products with fragrance on the ingredient list. Chose products that are water-based, parabens free, and 100% vegetarian.

phthalates in your home (since they are found everywhere in the environment)

avoid the plastics in the kitchen, avoid vinyl toys and any product made from vinyl (e.g., shower curtain), avoid air fresheners.

flame retardants coming in contact with your body

chose products made from natural fibers, like cotton and wool - those are naturally fire resistant.

toxic chemicals in cleaning products

chose green products like those with no fragrance, bio-degradable, non-toxic.

chemicals in your environment

avoid the use of pesticide and insecticides on your plants.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good list! I like it. Thanks for sharing...

kermitjohnson said...

I am wondering if you are aware of any "green" home builders who serious about building cob homes on a commercial scale. Cob construction is as green and as non-toxic as you can get.

As a Minneapolis real estate agent, I am interested in "green" home construction techniques.

I have written a post about a "green" home building material that is as eco-friendly as you can get. It seems far-fetched to us, but is very common in most parts of the world.

Would you mind sharing it with your readers? I am curious to see if this is something that could ever become a reality in our industry.

http://realestatetwincities.net/what-is-cob

Thank you

Keep up the good work.

Lucia said...

Hi Kermit,

thanks for your interest; I will post an article about eco-friendly building material. I just need to do some more research about it!

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot for your help. Now I know what to do.

caitmin said...

Good post, how do you identify what type of plastic or vinyl something is made from?

I have eczema, so now I use exederm skincare products - they are: color-free, fragrance-free, parabens-free, sls-free, lanolin-free and formaldehyde-free.

Eczema Help

Anonymous said...

Hi Caitmin,

thank you for you comment. You can identify the plastic by looking for the number used for recycling (usually on the bottom of the products). You can find a complete list of these on my post called Good plastic - Bad plastic (http://abunchofgreens.blogspot.com/2008/03/good-plastic-bad-plastic.html)

Thanks,
Lucia