Chapter 1. Home Green Home: Creating a Safe, Earth-Friendly Place to Live
Living green is all about reducing pollution and creating a safe, healthy environment for you and your family, not to mention all the other critters on the planet. There's no better place to start your quest for greenification than at home—after all, that's where you have the most control.
Turns out there could be some pretty scary pollution right in your own house:
The air in your home is probably more polluted than the air in the industrial part of a big city.
Many common cleaning products contain toxic substances.
The average American home contains 63 synthetic chemicals, which add up to about 10 gallons of hazardous stuff.
Yikes! Almost makes you want to up and move to a log cabin in the woods.
Luckily, you don't need all those nasty chemicals in your home. And, as you'll learn in this chapter, getting rid of them doesn't mean giving mildew free rein over your bathroom. Nope, you can easily and cheaply replace potentially harmful cleaning products with simple, natural alternatives. Same goes for your lawn: You can keep it healthy without feeding it synthetic fertilizers; the last section of this chapter teaches you how.
Before you can banish harsh chemicals in your home, it's important to learn about them and the problems they can cause so you can dispose of 'em properly. So this chapter starts with a rundown of common chemicals and the health problems they can cause. But don't lose hope: Keep reading to learn ...