Environmental and Health Hazards Caused by Chemicals Used in Homecare Products

Did you know that most floor cleaners contain Benzalkonium Chloride? It is a known human skin and severe eye irritant. As well as that, it is suspected toxic to the respiratory, gastro and immune systems? All that for clean floors!

Or that formaldehyde is often used in laundry and dishwasher products – it is very dangerous and is linked to skin irritation, asthmatic attacks, headaches and even worse, leukaemia?

Did you realise that phthalates can damage the reproductive system, also pose a significant danger to the kidneys and lungs? In animal testing, they are harmful to developing testes! Phthalates are present in most household detergents – you probably use these every day!

Have you actually questioned what you use in your home every day – you could be harming yourself and your family!

Going shopping for your household cleaning products is one of those routine tasks that you probably take for granted. The various household cleaning products speak to you with their marvellously curated marketing messages! They promise to make your floors sparkling clean, your windows streak-free and clear as crystal, your bathroom looks as good as new and your laundry as airy and fresh as it could possibly be. You either let yourself be swayed by their promises or maybe you reach for the first product you see? Alternatively, possibly you seek out your favourite brands or it might be that you’re not a loyal customer; you’re simply looking for the products on special offer. However, whatever your preference, have you ever considered the ingredients in the household products you choose? At PureCult, we believe strongly that you must check the ingredients lists carefully. Did you know that many of those ingredients used have the potential to really harm your health – not only that, your children’s health and your pets’ too? Those same ingredients are also causing significant damage to the world that we all live in, ruining our planet for future generations. It’s time to take action – as we say at PureCult we all need to Own Up, Act & Change and we’re going to tell you why…

Household Cleaner Chemicals and the Environment

In terms of the environment, household cleaning chemicals not only linger in the air that we breathe; they also make their way back to natural resources.  Consider this, when you use household cleaners in your bathrooms, in your dishwashers and washing machines, the toxic chemicals enter the water and travel back to rivers and lakes, contaminating them and adding to the destruction of wildlife.  These same chemicals also affect plant growth and vegetation – this means they even affect the food that you put on your table and eat. 

Household Cleaner Chemicals and Humans

That’s just a snapshot of what these chemicals do to the environment, but what about what the chemicals do to humans and animals? A huge amount of manmade chemicals that are found in household cleaning products can encourage allergies and pose a real danger to health.   This is proven in numerous studies. Such reactions include skin irritation and breathing difficulties, especially asthma in children. In fact, in recent years, there has also been an increase in adult asthma too, due to the many chemicals that humans ingest (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2020829/). While some of the aforementioned can be attributed to pollution, chemicals used at home play a huge role.  As well as allergic reactions, using too many dangerous chemicals, again and again, might even result in psychological disorders, potential birth defects. Worse still, so many chemicals are now known to be carcinogenic. 

What are the Ingredients to Avoid?

• Formaldehyde

We have mentioned this one before but Formaldehyde is possibly the worst culprit of all. This known carcinogenic can also cause breathing problems because it affects respiratory health.  Formaldehyde is often responsible for making the skin irritated and that is why it is now banned from being used in so many different skincare products. You might find formaldehyde in the following: cleaning products that you use in your bathroom and kitchen, wood cleaner, furniture polish and floor cleaners. Always look at the ingredients lists.

• Parabens

Another dangerous chemical is parabens. It’s especially important to avoid it because there has been evidence of breast cancer sufferers with parabens in the cancerous tissue https://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/01january/pages/parabens-in-breast-cancer-tissue-studied.aspx.  Parabens disrupt women’s hormones and in young girls, it can bring on puberty early. Additionally, parabens could make men infertile

• Ammonia

Did you know that Ammonia can seriously damage vision, not to mention that it can significantly impair lung function? Even just mild exposure can pose problems because it encourages asthmatic reactions and other respiratory problems, for example, coughing excessively.  If ingested, ammonia can burn your mouth and throat and aggravate your tummy. Ammonia is often present in household products that contain dye and liquid soap.

• SLS

Onto SLS.  The real term for SLS is Sodium Lauryl Sulphate or Sodium Laureth Sulphate.  These are both known to irritate the skin and don’t do anything cleaning-wise except they give you a nice, foamy texture.  You’ll find SLS in most bathroom and kitchen household cleaning products. Both can block up your pores this means that they could irritate skin with resulting problems such as eczema for example or dermatitis and other skin issues.  There are some studies which state that too much use of products with SLS could even result in cancerous growths https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/sodium-lauryl-sulfate1.htm. So when buying household cleaning products, it’s best to find alternatives that are free from sulphates.

How to Be Safer?

In these modern times, it is more crucial than ever to look after the world we live in, as well as the homes that we all live in too. Natural is obviously always best but it is difficult to find all-natural, pure household cleaning products.  However, there are cleaning products that do promote as many natural products as possible. Our PureCult household products use a combination of plant-based ingredients and natural essential oils, all with high biodegradability. Not only do our products truly care for your home, so it is extremely clean and fresh, they also care for our health and the environment. We are as pure as we possibly can be.

There is a caveat to kinder household products, natural ingredients are notoriously more expensive than the manmade chemicals that are extensively produced – but with our household products the added expense evens itself out.  That’s because we use refillable pouches and sturdy bottles that can be re-used, promoting recyclability and helping to reduce landfill. We also use high dosage concentrate in all of our products which means your household cleaners go the extra mile, lasting longer than the tens of hundreds of manmade brands available.

It goes without saying, as far as you can, you should always use non-toxic, pure products, for your health and that of your family’s as well as for the good of the planet.  As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, it’s time that we all “Own Up, Act & Change”. If everyone switched to environmentally friendly household cleaning products, we could genuinely help to slow down the destruction of the rain forests, we can reduce the amount of packaging ending up in the ocean, destroying marine life, we can preserve the ice caps and keep temperatures bearable for longer – we can actually help to save the planet!

The best practice is to adopt a pure living approach.

This means to be as natural as possible, to check labels religiously and to only choose environmentally friendly products that are as chemical-free as possible to give our health and the planet a fighting chance.