The Hazards of Everyday Soaps and Detergents

When you are washing the dishes do you think, "Am I polluting Mother Earth?" Does it run through your mind the chemicals you are using in your life, around your children, and in your home everyday? What are you doing to the planet when you get behind the wheel of your car? Maybe you think about turning off the lights, or unplugging the appliances. Then your mind wonders off and it is just an after thought. "Is the electricity I am using damaging the Earth?" How about, "Where does my garbage go when I throw it away?" "Should I be recycling?" Then there is the question of, "What are all of the pollutants I am using doing to my body?" That is a scary question if you really think about it.

I have really started to think about all of these issues, as I venture into going green with Bio-diesel soap made from bio-glycerin. I envision a future for all of our future generations to come. This is not a far-fetched dream if we all work together and make it a reality. Baby steps lead to giant leaps.

Lets start with the hazards of our dish detergent, laundry detergent, and body detergent. Yes I call it detergent because it has so many chemicals it is no longer soap. Lets start with why the detergents are harmful to your health, and can cause severe skin irritation. Have you ever thought to yourself, "Why is my skin so dry, tight, and scratchy?" Then look no further, the criminal for your scaly-crawly skin is alkali. The most common irritant in soap. Other ingredients in mass-produced soap are DEA, BHT, Isopropyl Alcohol, and Triclosan (very harmful and found in anti-bacterial soap). All of these ingredients are also skin irritants and harm you in other ways. Plus there are several other chemicals in your detergents that i listed earlier in the blog. If you find these ingredients listed on the label it is not soap IT IS DETERGENT.

The most common ingredient in conventional soap is Sodium Tallowate, which is the process of combing tallow(beef fat) with lye. The reason tallow is so popular is because it makes a hard bar of soap, it is cheap, and very plentiful.

These chemicals are also hazardous to your health because they leak into your bloodstream through the skin and pollute your system. Another way they enter our system is being on the dishes we consume food off of. The number one cause of household poisoning is from dish detergent just for this reason. There is also the fact that they emit gases that we inhale, causing respiratory problems such as; asemtha, bronchitis, and emphezema. On top of this bomb of ingredients we have three huge killers; petroleum, phosphates, and chlorine.

The miscreants of daily detergents and cleaners are petroleum, phosphates, and chlorine. These are very common ingredients found in daily dish cleaners and laundry soaps. All three of these ingredients are harmful to us and the planet. When these chemicals get into our system they cause health problems like; cancer, infertility, and birth defects. Does this have your mind racing? Stop for just a moment and think what it is doing to the planet.

Petroleum based products have their own impact on the plant. It boils down to this; OIL + PLANET= GLOBAL WARMING. The petroleum based products are contributing to the depletion of non-renewable resources. They are also causing dependability upon imported oil. If everyone switched to a Eco-friendly soap that is not petroleum based, we would save 82,000 barrels of oil a year.

Phosphates are another ingredient that causes Mother Earth to cry out in pain. Not so much her as the creatures of the ocean, lakes, and streams. It is used in dish detergent as a water softener, but not in laundry soap. In the 1970s the U.S. government recognized the problem of phosphorus pollution. By the 1990s the phosphate filled laundry soap had restrictions put on it, and the phosphates were phased out. The same recognition was not given to dish detergents though. The reason phosphates are so harmful is they stimulate and propagate the growth of weeds and blue-green algae in the water. In turn this changes the oxygen and other gases of the marine ecosystem. This causes the aquatic life to suffocate and go belly up. It also makes the waters unsafe for humans and other animals. If consumed the phosphates can cause diarrhea, nausea, and skin irritations.

Chlorine bleach is also added to detergents for its sanitizing benefits. It causes many health problems including; skin irritations, respiratory problems, and stomach disorders because it is highly corrosive. When combined with other cleaners it creates toxic fumes that not only do we breath, but are proved carcinogens and that pollute the environment.

This is just some of what I have found on the dangers of our daily cleaning detergents. I am going to keep researching, and I am also going to post on the hazards of other daily household cleaners. Thank you for your time and attention.

Go Green!!!