Tips to Keep Your Family Away from Toxic Chemicals (Part 2)
In part 1, several helpful tips were discussed on how to keep your family free from toxic chemicals while preparing, cooking and storing food and also in housekeeping. This time, it will be interesting to know some of the tips to avoid toxic chemicals in personal care, children’s stuff and other things.
Personal Care
- Avoid personal care products that contain chemicals such as triclosan (hormone disruptor), sodium laureth sulfate, parabens, and oxybenzone as they are toxic.
- Opt for products that have plant-based ingredients instead of petrochemicals.
- Choose fragrance-free products. As was mentioned, artificial fragrances contain toxic chemical phthalates.
- If you may, use home-made beauty products. A lot of recipes are available in the Internet today.
Children’s Stuff
- When buying toys for your kids, read the labels carefully and avoid those that have PVC, vinyl and #3 plastic code because they most likely contain phthalates which can cause serious health problems.
- If buying wooden toys, avoid those that are treated with petrochemicals as sealants. If your kid bites onto those toys, the petrochemical sealants could be toxic. Instead, look for wooden toys that are treated with beeswax or other natural non-toxic finishing.
- Opt for safer stuff for kids. Instead of oil-based play paints, choose water-based play paints, homemade play dough, and other homemade toys.
Miscellaneous
- Familiarize yourself with those common toxic chemicals which may be present in the everyday products you buy. And before buying anything, be sure to carefully read the label and look for those chemicals to avoid. If you are not sure, better not buy the product.
- Keep non-food household products in their original containers and do not transfer them especially to food or beverage containers. Other members of your household might mistake them for something else and use them or worse, consume them as food or beverage.
- When using cleaning products including those that do not contain well-known toxic chemicals, precaution is still very important. Avoid inhaling them and use them only in well-ventilated areas.
- Be sure to wear protective gear when using commercial products for cleaning such as gloves and masks to be protected from chemicals.
- Be sure to keep all commercial everyday products including cleaners, medicines, laundry products, and other similar products out of children’s reach. Ideally, you can keep them in a safe cabinet with lock to prevent children from accessing them.
- If you have to use toxic products in your home, be sure to clean up everything after your work. Containers should be carefully sealed and properly kept and the workplace properly cleaned-up.
- If you are keeping highly toxic products at home, aside from keeping them in a safe place, it is always good to put a label on them which says “TOXIC” so that anybody can easily recognize it as such.
While it can be in fact difficult to stay away from toxic chemicals these days, by observing the aforementioned tips, you will have a better chance of keeping your family safe and away from these toxic chemicals.