The Post on What I Leanred about Hazardous Household Products

Okay,

Here is what I learned about safety in the home:

Food:

Every state uses pesticides, each state has crops that need lots of pesticides used on them to be a viable crop. I can tell you what Washington State's are, because we got a list, but not what other states are.

Your true best bet is to buy organic produce for everything, but if it's too pricey, than only buy organic for the crops that require the use of a lot of pesticides, and regular produce for everything else. Also, with non-organic crops, use soap and water, not just water, to get rid of the pesticides, and then PEEL them, if possible. Also, they sell a wash in the store, but she said soap and water is just as good.

For organic delivery: justtomatoes and pioneerorganics both deliver. Just Tomatoes delivers everywhere. A bunch of moms and the presenter were all keen on the just tomatoes website, especially for their dried fruit. I believe the latter is more a northwest thing.

Here's why I'm sorta sold on organic produce currently... kids are peeing pesticides. It gets in their system. YIKES. Not only are our kids bigger due to cow hormones, but now they are weed and bug resistant... who woulda thunk?

Lawns

ChemGreen and all those other lawn services are not good for your children. They absorb the chemicals through their skin. The best news? They use these services or similar ones at parks everywhere. Yippeee!

Slug bait kills dogs. Unless you hate your neighbor's dog, use beer in a container instead. Slugs love beer, and it only makes dogs silly.

Weedkiller is bad for your kids' skin. Pull or dig up weeds. Honestly, it doesn't take THAT long (unless you have my yard but we're not going there)

Household:

Here is the most common time children drink cleaner, eat comet and spray 409 in their eyes: you are cleaning, you are a cleaning maniac, you have three rooms done and you are just on a roll and the phone rings, you stop, pick it up and walk away... but you don't put the cleaner away or up high... little bored toddler finds something to do. Also, if your child can open child-proof cabinets, move your stuff up high, behind a child-proofed cabinet.

Um, no nice way to say this. Don't, ahem, flush tampons down the toilet. It clogs up pipes and drains. Your call.

Common household products that may contain (meaning probably) hazardous ingredients: drain cleaner, oven cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, bathtub/sink/tile cleaner and all-purpose cleaner.

Refresher -- there are four words required by law to be put on all products that meet the criteria. The words denote the hazard level.
The terms again:
Safest -- doesn't contain 'warning' 'caution' 'danger' or 'poison' on the label.
Moderate -- 'caution' or 'warning'
Highest -- 'danger' or 'poison'

It's recommended you get rid of all 'danger' or 'poison' products as those are the ones that will kill kids, and idiot adults.
Also, check for products with no scent or a light scent, these are safer.

Safer alternatives

Pull weeds.
Hand pick and kill slugs. Or trap them with beer.
Buy 'good bugs' at nurseries to get rid of your aphids and other 'bad' bugs.
Use vinegar and water to mop floors and clean windows and mirrors.
Use baking soda, vinegar and hot water as a drain cleaner. It's like the volcano experiment in your sink.
Instead of Comet, use Bon Ami. It's sold in the store on the same shelf as Comet.
Seventh Generation products are also pretty good.
Vinegar and water apparently cleans everything, so just stick with those -- it's 1 cup vinegar mixed with 3 cups water. All the other crap sold in the stores are really not essential. So everyone who secretly felt they were wasting their money on cleaning products, totally right.
For those products you HAVE to have, keep them up high and locked.
There's something to do with lemon but I can't remember what.


You can go here to this link for more info, but it's local to my county. It still has good info.

That's about it.