A Dirty Little Secret

November 29th, 2011 • BY

Danger lurks within your cleaning products, says a new study.

What you don’t know can hurt you. The latest case in point: cleaning products. A new study of 20 common household cleaners, commissioned by nonprofit Women’s Voices for the Earth, found chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, and other unsavory ailments in some of the top-selling sprays and detergents, such as Tide Free & Gentle, Pine-Sol, and Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner. The most offensive chemicals included 1,4 dioxane, a probable human carcinogen, and phthalates, which have been associated with birth defects and reproductive disorders. It gets worse: Most of these chemicals aren’t disclosed on the products’ labels.

Unlike food and drug companies, cleaning supply manufacturers aren’t required to list all ingredients, but that may change with the Cleaning Product Right-to-Know Act, which Representative Steve Israel, a New York Democrat, introduced earlier this month. In the meantime, there are ways to minimize exposure. Check out the recent study, “Dirty Secrets: What’s hiding in your cleaning products?” to see what cleansers are safest, whip up home cleaners with simple, on-hand ingredients like baking soda and vinegar (see this Consumer Reports article for recipes), and—our best recommendation—clean less.

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Kate Siber

About

Kate Siber has worked as a pastry cook, a small-time farmer, a ski-rental tech, and a thankless-accounting drone, among other distinctive vocations, but the career she tried on and kept was writing. For the last eight years, Siber, a freelance writer and correspondent for Outside magazine, has traipsed the globe in search of stories, shooting blowguns with Amazonian tribes in Ecuador, tracking rhinos in South Africa, and diving with— More about this author →