How Many Dangerous Chemicals Do You Have In Your House?

It is estimated that the average U.S. house has over 60 toxic chemicals in it and over 3 million people are poisoned by household cleaning products each year in the U.S., the majority are children under 6. Next time you have a spare 15 minutes, go around your house and count the number of different cleaners you have in your bathroom, under the kitchen sink, in the laundry room, in the garage and anywhere else you might store such things. Include bug spray, lawn chemicals and cleaning supplies. When you are counting you can also keep count of how many of the items you would consider eco friendly cleaners. Also try to give a monetary value to each item.

When I did this experiment a few years ago I was shocked at what I found. I had so many cleaning products, some of which I hadn't even used for years but never got rid of because I thought it would be dangerous to discard the product. The products we didn't use added up to over a $100 we had wasted. Today doing the experiment I am in much better shape. We still have a few cleaners which I haven't found an alternative to yet. Bleach is a great cleaner and I use it a lot, but I don't want my kids playing in it. Today we also have a lot fewer cleaners because we make our own when we need it and usually don't make more than we need at the time.

Let us know how you fared in this experiment by leaving a comment.