AAOA Blog

Women’s Voices for the Earth, a national environmental health group is on a mission to remove an insidious health threat hiding under your kitchen sink: the chemicals you use to clean. 

Daily exposure to these popular household cleaning products has been linked to a myriad of health problems, from short-term problems like skin irritation, to chronic conditions including loss of fertility, asthma and cancers. Their solution:  throw a party!

Women and The Environment

WVE research has show that more women are affected because:

• Women are statistically more likely to be using the cleaners often, and
• These chemicals tend to cause reproductive disorders – infertility, miscarriage, birth defects.

Children, who many times are at home when the products are being used, are the most vulnerable because their neurological, endocrine and immune systems are still developing.

A Danger Lurking

Because there are no ingredient labeling requirements for most cleaning products, consumers don’t know what they are exposing themselves and their family members to on a daily basis.  Many consumers feel safe using products they buy in the store, like air fresheners for example, and are not aware that some may contain carcinogens.

WVE’s goal is to educate consumers and show them how to make their own green cleaners from safe, non-toxic ingredients that work just as well. Vinegar, for example, can be effective in eliminating 90-98% of bacteria, as well as microbes like E.coli.  

WVE director Alexandra Gorman Scranton, “There’s no reason to include toxic ingredients, even in trace amounts, in products that consumers use on a daily basis when safe and equally effective alternatives exist.”

Many household cleaners also cause injury to the environment, especially our water supplies.

Ladies’ Night

WVE innovation is the Green Cleaning Party,  a grassroots movement to reduce exposure to toxic chemicals in the home. The party format offers an appealing forum where you can learn with your friends how to make non-toxic cleaners from common ingredients like vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils.

For a $20 donation plus shipping and handling, the party host receives a Green Cleaning Party Kit, which includes:

• A booklet with background information and tips on how to throw a successful party.
• A short educational video to show your party guests.
• Recipe cards for the products.
• A supply list.
• WVE’s publication Advocacy 101: How to Influence Decision-Makers to Insure Products Are Safe.
• Labels for the guests’ products.
• Educational fact sheet.

WVE suggests a three-pronged approach to solve the problem:

1. Make your own products.
2. Buy only labeled products.
3. Speak out to change the laws.

To learn more, contact WVE at http://www.womenandenvironment.org/

Check out our Green Pages for information on money saving tips that help the environment.  Once there, click on the Green Forum.

American Apartment Owners Association offers discounts on products and services related to your commercial housing investment, including real estate forms, tenant debt collection, tenant background checks, insurance and financing.  Find out more at www.joinaaoa.org.

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Tags: women’s+voices+for+the+earth, women+and+the+environment, green+landlords, landlord+associations, apartment+owners+associations

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