Tackle the toxic nasties at home
Plastics and chemicals may once have been considered the way to domestic cleanliness and godliness but they can also form an unholy alliance right at the heart of the home
Editorial
A deadly cocktail of toxic chemicals and plastics, in the form of ingredients and packaging, lurks in countless cleaning and lifestyle products to unleash innumerable ills inside and outside our homes.
Everything in our homes and lifestyles impacts on the environment. Furniture can be the seat of many ethical and sustainability issues, from sourcing to chemicals, resources to labour and emissions impacts, from timber to cotton, leather and toxic flame retardants.
There’s a long list of toxic nasties in the most mundane of products, substances that have been linked to a host of health problems, including allergies, hormone disruption, organ damage, cancer and birth defects. Add other eco-evils like plastic pollution, palm oil and animal testing into the mix and you have a perfect, calamitous, environmental storm.
Chemicals are present in so many household and personal care products. They can destroy the delicately-balanced ecosystems where they end up, poisoning and sapping nutrients and oxygen in rivers and streams, suffocating and starving aquatic life and marine vegetation.
Then there’s plastic – in micro and macro forms – from the particles clogging up air and water to vast waves of discarded packaging floating in oceans across the globe. Plastic particles, hidden in everything from sun cream to hair products, are inhaled and ingested by animals and humans alike.
It is estimated that one in three fi sh eaten by humans contains plastic. Researchers are also seeing the impact of plastics on UK seabirds, many of which are declining at an alarming rate.
They ingest it, get fatally entangled in it and use it, equally lethally, in their nests.
A post-plastic planet is easier to imagine when you know how, though, as sustainable swaps abound. There’s a green and ethical, plant-based, chemical-free, zero-waste, cruelty-free alternative now available for every aspect of our lifestyles.
