Skip to main content

Household Products



The two household products I looked up are:
1. Shout Carpet Aerosol
2. Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, Citrus Blend
For 1) Shout Carpet Aerosol, I found:
Health Risks: The overall health rating is 1 and the flammability rating is 4. 1 is only a slight risk so I am comfortable with that. The flammability rating is a severe risk, which makes me more concerned and nervous. 
My Response to this new knowledge:
I was surprised to find the overall health rating was only a slight risk because I was honestly worried this product was toxic. It seems like it has a lot of chemicals but it works so well that I keep buying it! I have had a difficult time finding green products for carpet cleaners and since Shout doesn't advertise as a "green product" I was a bit worried. I am relieved this product is not that dangerous and I definitely will continue to use this product and will probably use it even more now. 
For 2) Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, Citrus Blend, I found:
Health Risks: This product has very low health risks. The health rating is 1, which is a slight risk. There are no carcinogens and no chronic health effect risks. Although a 0 rating would be better than a slight risk, the overall rating is very good and I feel comfortable with this product. I am happy to see it is low because I spend a lot of time reading labels and trying to pick healthy products but it is hard to know when there are so many options available to us. 
My Response to this new knowledge:
I was pleased to find out the health risk rating of this product is very low. I really love this product and will definitely still continue to use it, especially now that I know it has low health risks associated with it. I do think it is awesome that this product has such low toxicity and it made me happy that I chose a really great disinfecting wipe because we use it all the time everywhere throughout our home. I love this product and have been using it for a while and did do some research when I was first deciding on what types of wipes to use that are least harmful to the environment and have low risks to our health. However, I do find that it is difficult to find this information online or on labels and there is a lot of misleading and convoluted information out there. I am happy I can now use this website in the future.
Overall, I think everyone should know about the risks and the FDA should require companies to tell us more clearly in their advertising and product labels, exactly what the health risks associated with the use of their products are, including long-term issues and how long their products can leave harmful residue on our environments for. I am happy that my research into household products has proven fruitful and even the products that I was most worried about actually have pretty low health risks. I am still disappointed in how difficult it is to figure out what the health risks of household products are and I wish this website was easier to use and access. I also wish it was advertised to consumers so we could all use it regularly. I am so disappointed that we do not have an easier and more transparent way to figure out what is in our products. I really believe everyone has a right to know what they are buying and there should be a really easy, accessible resource for finding out information on all products that the government requires every company to update with their product information. I am definitely going to continue researching all my products the best I can before buying!
My Quiz Results from the EH Risks from Products by Mom's Clean Air Force:

Link to quiz: http://www.momscleanairforce.org/quiz-toxic-chemicals/

Comments

  1. KJSeptember 1, 2019 at 1:17 PM

    Wow, the products that you use do have a low health risk. It's funny to think that our facial and body products might have higher risks than cleaning chemicals. It would be nice if grocery stores advertised a numerical health risk on items so that we could consciously make better choices while shopping.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

M3.2 Vulnerable Populations

Why are we still ONLY focused on sedentary lifestyles and diets when addressing obesity in the US?  Why are we not also looking at ways to decrease exposures to those chemicals that may be contributing to the epidemic? I think one main reason we are focused on sedentary lifestyles and diets instead of exposures is that the U.S. has a very strong individualistic culture that is biased towards making every problem about individual responsibility. It feeds into the narrative that we are individually responsible for our welfare and success and are able to determine our health based on the individual choices we make. Another main reason for this focus, and for this culture more generally, in my opinion, is that it is in the interest of major U.S. corporations to distract us and blame individuals for their poor health rather than take responsibility for the ways in which the chemicals they are exposing us to are contributing to this epidemic and others. Their interest first and f...
Post a Comment
Read more

M4.6 Radon

Given that there are an estimated 21,000 excess deaths from lung cancer associated with exposure to radon,   how would you develop a national awareness campaign?   Name some of your potential collaborators (stakeholders). Developing a national awareness campaign would be challenging because I think people generally don't like to pay attention to environmental exposures and associated health risks unless they have been directly affected by the toxin in question. For a national awareness campaign regarding radon exposure, I would collaborate with the following organizations: American Lung Association Lung Cancer Foundation of America Lung Cancer Alliance American Cancer Society American Public Health Association American Medical Association American Nurses Association Home Depot, Lowes and other local hardware stores (a campaign for them to sell more radon testing kits) First Alert (makers of radon testing kits to include them in a campaign to sell kits) I think th...
Post a Comment
Read more

M10.2 Blog about MSDS and ToxNet

Obtain a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) from your workplace or from the workplace of a family member or friend.   Material Safety Data Sheets are chemical information sheets created by chemical manufacturers that all employers are required to obtain and keep for any potentially hazardous chemicals in the workplace. For this blog post, I tried to find a material safety data sheet (MSDS) from UCSF. The MSDS I found is for "Equi-soft Foam Antimicrobial Handsoap"  Here is a link to the MSDS:  https://cleanhands.ucsfmedicalcenter.org/docs/Product%20information/Arichive/Equi-soft_Foam_MSDS.pdf Review  the MSDS and answer the following questions: What are the health risks associated with this chemical? There are four chemicals in the antimicrobial handsoap:  2-methylpentane-2,4-diol; amines, coco alkyldimethyl, n-oxides; Polyethylene Glycol; and benzalkonium chloride.  The health risk associated with these chemicals is they can cause eye irrita...
Post a Comment
Read more