There are many reasons why you might be interested in creating a nontoxic home and workspace.  The most obvious, of course, is that it is better for your own health, the health of those who visit or live with you, and the health of your colleagues.  Exposure to toxic chemicals can aggravate symptoms of allergy and compromise the immune system to the point where disabling sensitivities to certain chemicals can develop.  Over a long period to time, toxic products can contribute to the development of cancer, birth defects, genetic changes, and other illnesses.  Some estimates suggest that the indirect costs of what is now called “indoor pollution” exceed $6 billion per year – more than $1 billion in medical bills and $5 billion from sick leave and reduced worker productivity.

Why should you care about household toxics?  Simple.  Because your greatest exposure to toxic substances is right in you home, and every toxic product used at home ultimately ends up in the environment, from which it can return to harm us.  Your house or apartment is probably full of everyday products made from materials and substances that cause cancer, birth defects, and changes in genetic structure, and that weaken the immune system, leaving your body vulnerable to many kinds off diseases and infections.  A multitude of common symptoms can be related to exposure to household toxics – headaches, depression, even ordinary flu symptoms might not be flu at all, but a pesticide poisoning or a reaction to your furniture polish.

Children are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of household toxics.  For, example, simply because of children’s size and physiology, they are exposed to more indoor pollutants than adults standing in the same room!  Children inhale more air per body weight than adults, at their respiratory rates are ten times faster that those of adults, and, since pollutants are generally heavier than air, they are at greater concentrations at the height of a child’s nose than they are at the height of an adult’s nose.  Even when children are exposed to the same amounts of chemicals as  adults, their bodies are much smaller, relatively speaking; the proportion of their chemical exposure to body weight is greater than ours.  The same is true for foods.  Because children eat more in relation to their body weight they consume proportionally more food additives and pesticides.  Children are more active than adults, and probably drink more water in relation to their body weight, and so have a greater exposure to water pollutants.  At the same time, their bodies are not as well equipped to process toxic chemicals, so their risk is increased more than ours by two factors.

While there are certainly some people who are more sensitive to household pollutants than others, it is important to remember that these substances are poisoning all of us, whether or not we feel the effects immediately.  Some toxics poison instantly, others show their devastating effects only after years of every of everyday exposure.  How many times have we said we would have done something to prevent a tragedy, “If only I had known….”