The Seriousness of Toxic Chemicals in the Home
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david
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Writing a blog piece every week that is usually about environmental dangers in the home and what we can do to minimize them I start to feel like a broken record. I also get to wondering if I’m really doing the right thing by harping on this problem. Is this level of wariness and minute scrutiny of daily habits actually good for us and our children? Maybe all this concern is just a fetish of our neurotic culture. Shouldn’t parents try to be more care-free and pass on that value to our kids?
I came across a fabulous retort to this upwelling of self-doubt in an online article now a dozen years old written by Judith Shulevitz in the New Republic (first link below). She herself started out with much the same concerns. But wanting to get to the bottom of it, she did the research and ended up solidly believing in the seriousness—in fact, urgency—of the issue.
Here in a nutshell is her argument. Plastics proliferated after World War II. Their problems have been known for a long time. But better science in the 80s and 90s made the pathways of their harm known in a lot more detail. Also their effects were now being documented in detail. In particular there were studies of the harmful effects of pcb’s in fish on child development around the Great Lakes.
That was the spur to greater activism and a negative attitude toward sources of toxins among a larger share of the public. Yet toxic chemicals have only proliferated since the 90s. As another article states, “An estimated 26.9 trillion pounds of some 84,000 different chemicals are produced in or imported into the U.S. every year (second link below).” This causes significant daily exposure in our homes. And children suffer the most harm.
Toxic chemicals enter the home in many ways: flame retardants in mattresses and clothes, our food, especially meat and fish, plastics, harmful cleaning supplies, shampoos, and even in the heavy metals we bring on the soles of our shoes. There are a number of good habits we can develop to cut down on the inflow. Below are links that show you the toxic chemicals to avoid in your home and how to go about it.
These practices help but they can’t make the problem go away. The power of the chemical industry lobby is very entrenched. Ultimately, we need political action to intervene in this problem that is affecting the health of both parents and children.
Sources:
https://newrepublic.com/article/86339/toxins-plastic-shampoo-panic
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/toxic-dangers-the-plight_n_2082588
https://www.propublica.org/article/toxic-chemicals-epa-regulation-failures
Links to guides for reducing toxic chemicals in the home:
