chemicals

I don’t make many mistakes when it comes to keeping toxic chemicals out of my house — and off my property. I have an eagle eye for such things because of my experiences with chemical sensitivity and my longtime work to help others avoid harmful chemicals. But now and then the wool gets pulled over my eyes, or I go into denial when I should know better. Case in point for me: pressure-treated chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treated wood.

When you’re doing everything you can to eliminate chemicals in your 1-year-old’s environment, getting gifts can sometimes cause a bit of a conundrum. Take the pajamas my mother-in-law sent us this week, which were treated with fire retardants.

Many people give me a guilty look when they tell me they have wall-to-wall carpet in their homes. I always feel badly that they are embarassed, especially because there is so much misinformation about how toxic carpets are and why — and because I know that carpeting can be a lot cheaper than other types of flooring. I myself would have enjoyed wall-to-wall carpet in a few rooms when my daughter was younger, as I think that soft surface would have been cozy for her.

When I think of plastic #5 — polypropylene, commonly used for yogurt containers, syrup bottles, ketchup bottles, caps, straws and medicine bottles — I think of my mother going into a fit of recycling rage, ranting about the fact that we couldn’t recycle plastic #5 in our area. But the real story here parallels the BPA scare with water bottles and baby bottles …