Bad news. The kitchen sink is stopped up, the cat had a accident on the carpet, you've got wine stains on the tablecloth and ring around the collar, the silver is tarnished, the windows are smudgy and your mother-in-law is stopping by for tea.
No problem, you say. You open the cupboard under the sink and expose your awe-inspiring arsenal of commercial cleansers, bleaches, polishes, paints, strippers, solvents, removers, deodorizers, disinfectants, detergents, abrasives and drain openers. You'll whip this house into shape in no time.
Before you get to work, however, open all the windows. And don't forget to put on your rubber gloves and respirator. After all, have you ever taken a look at the labels on those ordinary household products lurking under your sink?
Thousands of household products contain ingredients that are toxic, caustic, corrosive, inflammable, volatile or explosive. These include such everyday products as drain cleaner, motor oil, paint thinner and bleach.
Taken into your body, these chemicals can cause immediate headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, diarrhea -- and death. They can do permanent damage to your liver and kidneys, and to your nervous and reproductive systems.
Of course, you know that household cleansers and maintenance products must not be eaten or drunk. But little is known of the long-term effects of absorbing motor oil through your skin or inhaling oven cleaner fumes.
How can you tell which of your cherished household products contain toxic chemicals? A close look at a product's label may not tell you much. However, certain key words required by federal law do give you the bottom line:
DANGER means a product is highly toxic -- a mere lick of weed killer, for example, will kill you.
WARNING indicates moderate toxicity -- you have to drink a whole tablespoon of toilet bowl cleaner to get a fatal dose. CAUTION signals low toxicity -- you can drink as much as a pint of bleach before dying, though a lesser dose won't exactly be pleasant.
And don't be unduly comforted by the label "non-toxic." A product that kills 50 percent of lab animals within two weeks of exposure can still qualify as non-toxic, according to the Washington Toxics Coalition.
If you do survive your oven cleaner or your air freshener, you run into another problem: how to dispose of it without exposing the environment to those same poisons.
