When you mow your floors with this same flavorful, lemon-scented cleaner, you’re theoretically cleaning—but, at almost the same time, you can pollute the air within your house. Popular household items, from soaps, including polishes for flooring and furniture, sometimes contain chemicals that are emitted into the environment and can be detrimental to your health. Particularly certain items that are advertised as “green” are not always off the leash.

Effecting of Detergents on Furniture

Formaldehyde is the most popular VOC in the world. This combustible, strong-smelling gas is used in many household items, personal cosmetics, and dry-cleaning formulations, and other products may even emit it. Manufactured wood items, such as laminate flooring, hardwood plywood, cabinets, and chairs, also have elevated levels of formaldehyde, as do permanent-pressed materials, such as those found in furniture or draperies. Formaldehyde may induce a burning feeling in your eyes, nose, mouth, watery eyes, coughing, wheezing, skin discomfort, or nausea.

Cons of Using Detergents

Groundwater contamination with surplus phosphorus and nitrogen—and its derivatives, such as phosphates and nitrates—is another form of nutrient waste. Kids under the age of six months are at increased risk of consuming nitrates through drinking water. Nitrates are transformed into nitrites which oxidize blood cells and inhibit blood oxygenation, resulting in blue baby syndrome.

In the rains, ammonia is released into the soil in the atmosphere. It interacts with soil water, rising soil acidity. The soil’s pH thereby decreased plants’ consuming nutrients such as copper, calcium, magnesium, and potassium. This is influencing crop development.

The Environmental Working Group has assembled this catalog of household cleaners involving hazardous chemicals. Green, herbal cleaners are a better alternative than oil-based, commonly produced cleaning products. The chemicals in these eco-friendly products dissolve quickly. They pose minimal to no danger to our bodies and the indoor and outdoor climate.