Green Byte V4: Air Fresheners – not so FRESH
November 1st, 2007 | General, Green Byte
It’s not easy to always have fresh flowers to brighten up your house. It can also get expensive. Most people feel that the most affordable thing to do is spray some air freshener when things get a little stale or you burn the pot roast. What a new study from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says is that the “cost” of those sprays may be much more that we first thought. Spray and solid air fresheners were tested, 14 in all, and 12 of them were found to have phthalates in them (even the “all-natural” and “unscented” ones).
Pthalates are known to interfere with hormone and testosterone production. Children and unborn babies are particularly vulnerable to the toxins. The State of California notes that five types of pthalates – including one detected in air fresheners – are “known to cause birth defects or reproductive harm.” Still, pthalates are used in many common consumer products — to soften plastics in children’s toys, as sealants and adhesives in nail polish, and as solvents in perfumes and fragrances.
If you have to use a spray, editors of Building Green TV recommend Mate Mist as a natural alternative.
**Excerpt from blog entry (October 2007) on Building Green TV. See http://www.buildinggreentv.com/ for more information.
Subscribe
Poll
Scenes
from the Ranch
