The Environmental Protection Agency explains that toxic compounds enter the environment in many ways and in many forms. Some are poured into sewers through the drains of homes and offices, while others may be taken as solids to landfills and dumps.  Once in the environment, chemicals may undergo a series of reactions forming new products, some of which may be toxic and some of which may take on a new phase (solid, liquid, or gas). Compounds can also move from one environmental medium to another. Acid rain is an example of airborne toxics moving from one environmental medium - the air - to another - water.

Many conventional cleaning products contain chlorinated compounds which are very persistent in the environment and difficult to break down. Today there are about 15,000 of them in commercial use although on October 27, 1993, the American Public Health Association unanimously passed a resolution urging American industry to stop using chlorine because chlorine is highly reactive and its use often creates new and unforeseen toxins when released into the environment. Because organochlorines are extremely stable, they can remain to trouble us for a long time — up to 2,500 years in some cases. And because they readily dissolve into oils, they are able to easily enter and accumulate in human and animal fatty tissues. Further complicating the picture is the fact that organochlorines are highly efficient environmental travelers. They've been found in regions as remote as Midway Island and the Arctic, places thousands of miles from the nearest source.¹

Today's conventional cleaning products often contain petrochemicals, many of which are so dangerous that they're included on lists of chemicals involved in Superfund toxic waste sites and in the toxics section of the Clean Air and Water Acts. Unfortunately, it's not easy to identify which products contain these hazardous ingredients. While cleaners are the only household products regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission under the Federal Hazardous Substances Labeling Act, they're still not required to reveal their ingredients. These ingredients are considered "trade secrets" so government regulations are actually designed to protect this proprietary information rather than to protect human health or the environment. Petroleum pollutes the environment when we drill for it, when we transport it, and when we refine it. Oil spills average a million gallons a month into the environment and refineries release 8.25 million pounds of toxins into our air and water each year. Every time we use a petrochemical cleaning product, we contribute to this pollution, further pollute the indoor air and surfaces at your office, and send toxic chemicals down the drain. And we further deplete an important global resource whose supplies are expected to disappear around the year 2050.

As people continue to use harmful conventional cleaning products, our waters become more and more polluted. The EPA has issued drinking water standards for only 80 water pollutants² even though countless thousands of others exist. In fact, although some 700 chemicals are routinely found in our nation's drinking water³ no standards for any of these many other pollutants have been set. Chlorine in the form of volatile organochlorides, petrochemicals, and other persistent organic pollutants, industrial and household chemicals; disinfection by-products like chloroform and trihalomethanes; and other pollutants like nitrites and nitrates are polluting precious water sources as a result of the continued use of conventional cleaning products.⁴

Healthy Habitat enthusiastically stated its commitment to continuous environmental improvement by endorsing the CERES Principles, a ten-point code of environmental conduct. The products we use to clean your property work as well as or better than their traditional counterparts, but use renewable, non-toxic, phosphate free and biodegradable ingredients, and are never tested on animals. They are as gentle on the planet as they are on people and they don't create fumes or leave residues that may affect the health of your employees, your office pets, or your visitors.

References

1. www.seventhgeneration.com Water on Tap: A Consumer’s Guide to the Nation’s Drinking Water, EPA publication 815-K-97-002, July 1997 Don’t Drink the Water, by Lono Kahuna Kupua A’o, Kali Press, 1996 www.seventhgeneration.com