20 ways to cut out chemicals in your home
- Be aware of chemicals in the paints, solvents and cleaning products you buy. Buy low emission paint.
- Cut use of natural gas if you can. Leakages are a common cause of chemical exposure.
- Use natural alternatives to pesticides in the garden.
- Natural bed sheets and wash them regularly.
- Remove carpets and lay wooden floors.
- If you have air conditioning make sure its installed correctly.
- Open windows regularly unless you live in a polluted area in which case you should buy a fan and an air filter.
- Don’t dry clothes indoors. The water from your clothes has to go somewhere and it will most likely end up in the indoor air. Eventually seeping into walls. This could allow legions of mould spores to grow, each releasing their own toxic chemicasl into the indoors air.
- Use a dehumidifier.
- Store all your naastier chemicals outside - paints, solvents and adhesives.
- Buy bicarbonate of soda as this wonder powder dissolves dirt and grease, removes stains from carpets and neutralises strong odours.
- Attach a carbon/ceramic filter to your water tap so that you have clean water for drinking, washing and laundry.
- Always use glass containers for drinking, steel cutlery for eating and inert porcelain or ceramic plates.
- If DIYing always wear a mask when dealing with chemicals or cutting up wood.
- Wash your curtains as often as you can, or, better, take them down and replace them with blinds. Not only will they absorb fewer toxins and less dust, they are less likely to have been treated with flame retardants.
- Don’t smoke.
- Don’t use chipboard.
- Don’t use bleach and ammonia.
- Take off shoes when you come home.
- Take your vacuum cleaner into previously unchartered territory .. perhaps your matress, which is typically home to anything from 100,000 to 10 million dusst mites.
