Do you love that fresh and clean smell of your clothes after using wonderful smelling laundry detergents? Your clothes come out smelling fresh and clean. Well, personally, that smell makes me nauseous … but doesn’t it smell great?
Do you know that plasticizers in detergents actually “hold in” the fragrance, so even after 10 to 20 washes those chemicals may still be in your clothes? For those allergic to these chemicals, clothes can rarely be decontaminated completely. Maybe there is a reason my body is telling me to get away from that smell – the ingredients in these detergents have been linked to asthma, migraines and other negative impacts.
Much has been written and discussed about the toxic chemicals that find their way from our homes to the Puget Sound. You may not know, for instance, that killer whales are one of the most toxic animals, due to the build-up of toxins in the prey they consume, and killer whales’ prey’s prey, and so on down the line. This is just a hint of the sorry state of health in our Puget Sound!
I am a member of the Students Expressing Environmental Dedication (SEED) at the University of Washington. During this past school year, our 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) Committee began a “Forget the Fragrance” campaign to educate our residents. Most people did not even know that chemicals linked to adverse health effects like cancer are not even required to be written on packages of detergents. Many students in surveys said they are “willing to switch to fragrance-free products,” as long as they are affordable and in convenient stores.
As a concerned human living near Puget Sound, I feel it is part of my duty, if you will, to make sure that we clean up our act and thus clean up Puget Sound. We are the cause of the sadly polluted state it is in now. So maybe we cannot force companies to use better ingredients, but we can show them what we want through what we buy. Let us show them we are concerned for our environment. We want a clean and sustainable future (not just clean clothes that smell sickly sweet).
Yet be sure to be aware of what you buy, and most importantly: educate yourself.
For a list of “better” laundry detergents and more information, go to https://depts.washington.edu/soundcit/data/forget-the-fragrance or http://pugetsound.org/pressroom/press-releases/092909drain.
Teos Bisbee is a friend of Sustainable Edmonds.
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