In March, my wife and I became new parents to a beautiful baby boy. That very day, my view of everything in our home shifted. The work I have the chance to be a part of at Toxic-Free Future came into a new kind of clarity. What products in our home are truly safe for him? What dangers and threats does he face from endocrine disruption, air quality, microplastics, and a bevy of other concerns?
This came into sharp focus on laundry day.
As a new parent, every day is laundry day
People warned me there would be laundry, but I was not ready for the sheer mountains of soiled burp cloths, onesies, and swaddles surrounding me.
Our days are spent caring for him as we wade through canyons of dirty hampers. And that doesn’t include the multitudes of our own extra laundry! Little baby boy likes to share the love and suddenly three outfit changes a day for everyone in the family has become a norm.
Sisyphus had a boulder; parents have a never-ending pile of dirty laundry.
Since laundry detergent has suddenly become one of the top 10 most used things in our home, I want to make sure that what we use is safe for him. And there is reason to be concerned.
Laundry detergent (and much more) must be safer
Many laundry detergents contain strong fragrances, often including a whole host of chemicals that are of high concern to developing children and their health. Cleaning products contain chemicals that can disrupt hormones, cause skin allergies (or irritate skin), and harm aquatic life.
My approach has been simple: looking for the Safer Choice label. A proven certification on products that ensures they are safe for the environment and for humans, Safer Choice is an EPA program that includes laundry detergents and many other products I use at home.
It is an effective program that lets me know at a glance that I’m making a choice that is safer for my growing son and for our family. At best, I am sleep-addled right now, and frankly, after difficult nights of lullabies and shushing and days filled with tummy time and diaper changes, I don’t have the brain capacity to read through ingredient labels. Any word larger than four syllables reads to me like complete gibberish.
I appreciate the ease of looking for a Safer Choice logo. I’m a parent now, and he is my first priority. Having a trustworthy label I can rely on to help make the best choices for my family makes all the difference.
The good news: Safer Choice works
And here’s the best part; it works!
Parents see plenty of labels that say “eco-friendly,” “all-natural,” or “sustainable.” They might be comforting to see, but they are not always supported by a credible independent source.
For more than a decade Safer Choice has provided effective information for consumers who want to choose safer cleaning products. The products certified under the Safer Choice program cannot contain chemical ingredients that are known to contribute to most human health and environmental problems, or chemicals with unknown effects. That means no carcinogens, reproductive toxins, or brain-damaging chemicals, or chemicals that harm aquatic life, for example.
And Safer Choice could be even better. Recently, the EPA had a comment period considering the expansion of the program to cosmetics, personal care products, and a number of other categories. The overwhelming majority of comments were in support of expanding the program.
Expanding into additional product categories is good for the environment and good for consumers. Safer Choice empowers individuals to make a choice without having to first earn a dual degree in toxicology and chemistry.
My son is (as of this writing) five months old. What he needs now is love, attention, soothing, milk, sleep, a diaper change, and clean clothes. But his needs will continue to change over time.
I’m grateful for the Safer Choice label, and I sincerely wish that it could be applied to the myriad of personal care products he will use. Being able to certify that more products are truly safer is a critically important job for the EPA to do.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re just about out of clean burp cloths…perpetually.
Organizing Manager
Daniel Parkhurst serves as Toxic-Free Future’s Organizing Manager, bringing more than a decade of passion for advocacy through collective action.
