Allergies and Cleaning Products

In the world today there are many who suffer from allergies.  One of the best things allergy suffers can do to eliminate their symptoms is to make sure that their house is clean and free from allergens.  But using traditional cleaning products can damage the air quality in your home and the fumes and residue left by these products can exacerbate your allergies, cause asthma attacks and chemical sensitivity. Studies have shown that people who are frequently exposed to cleaning products like de-greasers, solutions with bleach and air fresheners are more likely to have asthma or respiratory symptoms like coughing and wheezing, often associated with allergies. 

By switching to a green cleaning product, the allergy and asthma symptoms one might experience from cleaning their home can be greatly reduced or eliminated.  By using a green product you can have the clean house you need, without the fumes and residue left behind by a traditional cleaning product. You no longer have to make plans to be out of your house after you clean, so your allergies and asthma won’t flair up. 

Simple Green is a great product replacement.  They are 100% naturally derived, non-toxic, and biodegradable.  They have many products line ranging from the kitchen to the bathroom and laundry detergent to carpet cleaner, so no matter what you are cleaning they make a product that is safe for you and the environment to use.

Green Buildings

My Planet Green Clean, Lead Educate Innovate

            As you are aware many people just don’t know, how toxic and destructive the chemicals in there household cleaning supplies can be to their health, let alone our environment. We salute those of you of who are using green cleaning supplies, and encourage you to educate your friends. Continue to be the catalyst for healthy cleaning and living.

“Be the Change you wish to see in the World”  Ghandi

            Here at MyPlanetGreen Clean we aim to not only push more green products but also educate the world of the ever growing and expanding Green Movement. Today we would like to highlight the efforts of California State University Fullerton’s Titan Recreational Center.  CSUF’s Titan Recreational Center is newly designed state of the art GYM for the college campus.  Upon it’s inception and within it’s first year of opening it received the Gold Certification by the U.S Green Building Council.

            This Gym goes beyond just using green cleaning supplies, “The gold certification awarded by the council is verification that a building or building project meets the highest in green building and performance measures. LEED is the nationally accepted benchmark for design, construction and operation of green buildings. It rates five key elements: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality”

“Build it and they will Come” Field of Dreams

This building, campus, and article is truly a testament to power of the voices worldwide that demand Green Cleaning. Here is the Link below, We would hate to pollute, or provide chemical spoilers on this amazing article.  Check it Out.

http://calstate.fullerton.edu/news/2009/177-student-rec-center-celebrates.html

“Lead and they will Follow”,

MyPlanet Green Clean Staff

Harmful Chemicals in Cleaning Products

When shopping for cleaning products most consumers are looking for one thing, products

 that clean. What many consumers fail to look for this the chemicals and warning on the cleaning labels. So what should we look for? Although most cleaning supplies don't list the ingredients on the back label, there are clues to the content and harmful effects of these products. By looking for signal words, such as Danger, Poison, Warning or Caution you can judge the toxicity of the products. Products labeled Danger or Poison are the most hazardous, products labeled Warning are moderately hazardous and products labeled Caution are sightly hazardous. If possible look for products nontoxic enough as to not require one of these signal words on the label.

The harmful chemicals can be in household supplies ranging from hand soups to oven cleaner. These are some of the chemicals, which products they can be found in and their effect.

•   Chlorinated phenols found in product such as toilet bowl cleaners are toxic to respiratory and circulatory systems. Combined with other ingredients they can produce toxic flumes. There are over 19 different Chlorinated phenols
•  Diethylene glycol found in window cleaners can depress the nervous system.
• Phenols found in disinfectants are toxic to respiratory and circulatory systems.
•  Nonylphenol ethoxylate, a common surfactant (detergent) found in laundry detergents and all-purpose cleaners. It was been shown to biodegrade slowly into an even more harmful toxin.
• Formaldehyde found in spray and wick deodorizers is a respiratory irritant and suspected carcinogen.
•  Petroleum solvents in floor cleaners damage mucous membranes.
•  Perchloroethylene, a spot remover, causes liver and kidney damage.
•  Butyl cellosolve, common in all-purpose, window and other types of cleaners, damages bone marrow, the nervous system, kidneys and the liver. The list could fill a book. And it’s a book that would include thousands of other chemicals — some so dangerous that they’re found on lists of chemicals associated with Superfund toxic waste sites and in the toxins section of the U.S. Clean Air and Water Acts. Retrieved October 7, 2012, from http://life.gaiam.com/article/8-household-cleaning-agents-avoid.

References: http://life.gaiam.com, http://www.organicconsumers.org, http://www.epa.gov

Enviromental Care

Sure we all know enough to not to digest cleaning products and to keep it away from children and our food, but there are many ways harmful toxins from regular cleaning products can still end up effecting you.

It begins with the disposal of these products. Like most people, you probably throw away a spray bottle once there is not enough fluid left to get a full spray and throw away powders without checking to see how much is really left. These disposed products contain thousands of untested chemicals that you have now unintentionally put into the environment. 

With the exception of laundry detergent, most common cleaning products have many non-biodegradable chemicals that over time end up in streams, rivers and who knows where else. These chemicals come in contact with marine life of all sorts whether it be the plant that a fish eats or the fish that you eat. Not to mention the effects of these chemical when in contact with your skin has been proven to cause cancer and birth defects.

Packaging of many cleaning products has improved over the years in part due to the Montreal Protocol. However not all of this packaging is biodegradable even today and some of it can not be recycled and take a heavy toll on our planets health. For example: Aerosol cans still contain propellant gases which have chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that are proven to harm the ozone layer.

Bottom line is that we are killing ourselves and our planet by not using Green Cleaning Products. Even if one would be lucky enough to never be effected by the negative effects, can you use these products knowing that they will effect someone else?

Reference: http://www.greenchoices.org/green-living/cleaning/environmental-impacts

Green Cleaning Tips: Laundry

Washers and dryers use lots of energy and water to get our cloths nice and clean. 

However, doing laundry consumes a great amount of water and energy. Here are some steps you can take to minimize the impact that cleaning your cloths can do to the environment. These tips may help you save some money. Going green helps you save more green!!

• Try using an environmentally friendly laundry detergent.

There are many things that can make a better for the environment. Buying a concentrated detergents helps benefit the environment because it takes less resources to create these products. Also, try finding a laundry detergent that does not use harmful chemicals like Alkylphenol ethoxylates or APE. Exposure to APEs can hurt your immune system. 

• Use cold water when washing your clothes.

Heating up the water for the accounts for 90% of the energy that a washer uses. By using cold water cuts down the energy needed to clean your cloths. Manufactures of laundry detergent offer cold water activated laundry detergent. Using this will help you reduce your energy costs. 

• Wear the same pair of clothing many times. 

If you wear clothes more then once you will have less cloths to clean. Since you are cleaning less clothes you are consuming less resources. However, somethings like underwear you should wear only once. 

• Use of front loading washing machine.

Newer washing machine are more efficient then their top loading cousins. According to Energy Star, older washing machines use 30-35 gallons of water per load. However, newer washing machines use 10-15 gallons of water per load. Newer washing machines use around a third of the water it takes to complete a load. Treehugger.com says that an average family dose over 400 loads of laundry a year. If a 30 gallon washing machine does 400 loads at 30 gallons per load then the and efficient washing machine use 12,000 gallons per year. If you use a washing machine that uses 10 gallon per load and you do 400 loads of laundry you will only use 4,000 gallons of water per year. Just by switching machines you will save 8,000 gallons of water per year! 

• Air dry your clothes

If you don't use your dryer then you wont use any energy. Using the power of the sun you can dry your cloths for no cost. When you use the sun to dry your clothes they also last longer. When clothes are drying in the dryer they are moving and that causes them to wear out faster. Since your clothes aren’t moving when they’re being air dried they will last longer.

Tips and Data come from Treehugger.com

http://www.treehugger.com/htgg/how-to-go-green-laundry.html#reading

Alternatives Products

Everyone loves a clean home.  In order to keep our home clean we often use 10 or more different cleaning products.  Some are for the kitchen, others are used in the bathroom and some are for cleaning the carpet.  Most people do not care what is in the product they are using as long as it gets the job done.  Most of the cleaning products that we keep in our homes “clean” actually have harmful chemicals in them.

The following numbers were released in the 2009 Poison Control Report, from the American Association of Poison Control Centers about the phone calls they receive that year.  Some of the statistics on the right and below are a few stats that stood out to me about household cleaning products. 

·       4,280,391 phone calls received in 2009

·       91.19% of all human poison exposures occurred in the home

·       212,616 phone calls or 7.4% of all calls were about household cleaning products

·       For those ages 0-5, 125,392 phone calls or 9.34% of phone calls were about household cleaning products.

Seeing that cleaning products are so prevalent in our homes and in our lives, one would think that we all should be more aware about what we are bringing into our homes. 

So the questions now becomes what steps can I take to avoid these toxins?  One easy way, is to check the product to see if the cleaning products you are buying are “Green” meaning the product are ecofriendly and is not made without harmful chemicals.  There are several companies that one can turn and know that the products that sell will not be toxic to us.

Some include:

·    

         Simple Green

·       7^th Generation

·       Green Concepts

·       Clorox Green Works

     

     So next time your looking for cleaning products be sure to make sure they have a green or ecofriendly label because you never know what toxins you might be bringing into your home.

Toxins in the Home

Cleaning Products can be dangerous for the family and nauseating for pregnant women. In 2000, cleaning products were responsible for nearly 10% of all toxic exposures reported to U.S. Poison Control Centers, accounting for 206,636 calls. Of these, 120,434 exposures involved children under six, who can swallow or spill cleaners stored or left open inside the home. (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_279.cfm) 

These products can cause indoor pollution as well as be extremely harmful even fatal if they are in the hand of children that do not know there dangers. Here are a couple examples Ammonia: is a very volatile chemical and is very damaging to your eyes, respiratory tract and skin. Antibacterial Cleaners:  may contain triclosan, which is absorbed through the skin and can be tied to liver damage (http://www.mamashealth.com/doc/cleanprod.asp). Other chemicals such as bleach and Chlorine found in cleaning products can be extremely harmful as well.  

The question to ask yourself is after knowing this information how do you feel about harmful cleaning products in your home?