Hazardous chemicals in your home

Chemicals have been developed over the past few decades to improve everyday products. They are in toys, floor coverings, computers, shower gels and detergents, textiles and mattresses. We are lying on, walking on, touching and wearing chemicals every day.

What's wrong with that, you might ask, assuming the chemicals are safe? You'd expect them to have been tested, monitored by someone from the government and approved for use after knowing that they pose no problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hazardous and untested chemicals are routinely used as additives in consumer goods. They add certain qualities - flexibility to plastics, scent to beauty and cleaning products, fire resistance to soft furnishings. They may have been added to stop plastics from breaking down, or to kill dust mites or mould.

Unfortunately, some of these chemicals are known to be hazardous - yet the current regulatory system allows their continued use in products we bring into our homes. The so-called "risk assessments" try to determine "safe limits" of exposure, but these do not guarantee protection from the harmful effects of chemicals. That's because:

• One cannot investigate all possible routes of exposure to a chemical (e.g. from all types of food products or environment) and have data available for all of them.
• Assessments rarely consider exposure to more than one chemical at a time or differences in the vulnerabilities of different subgroups within populations (e.g. adults versus children); and
• Assessments start from the premise that some degree of exposure, even to the most hazardous chemicals, can be judged "acceptable". However, for many of the chemicals already known for some time to present serious hazards, we just don't know the full and long-term effects of these chemicals on our health or on our environment, even at low doses.

Although we may not be aware of it, this means that persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals - as well as those which are known to disrupt or mimic hormones, to be toxic to reproduction, to harm immune systems, and some which may be carcinogenic - are already in our kitchens, lounges, bedrooms and bathrooms. They are found in everyday products and escape during normal use and through wear and tear over time. For example:

• Cosmetics, shampoos and personal care products can contain synthetic musks. These substances can accumulate in our bodies and could disrupt hormone systems.
• Your computer can contain fire-retardant brominated chemicals, which exhibit developmental toxicity and may mimic hormones produced by the thyroid gland.
• PVC products such as flooring can contain organotin chemicals. They're used to stabilise the plastic but are toxic to the immune system.
• Soft PVC, used in many products - such as shower curtains or soft plastic case for your mobile - contains phthalates, which can be toxic to reproduction.
• Waterproof jackets and other rain-gear could contain perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), chemicals, which are also used and released during the manufacture of non-stick coatings for pans and other cookware. These are now of increasing concern because of their links to hormone disruption and promotion of cancer.

With evidence growing that these types of chemicals could be storing up long-term problems for human health and the environment, it makes sense to reduce or, ideally, eliminate our exposure to them. How can we achieve it? Simple. By substituting hazardous chemicals wherever there are available alternatives. Wishful thinking? Far from it - in most cases, safer alternatives have existed on the market for years. What is missing is the drive from governments to ensure that all manufacturers switch to these alternatives. This so called 'substitution principle' is the main demand of Greenpeace from REACH - the new European chemicals policy.

Discover which brand named products can contain hazardous chemicals on our Chemical Home site.

Before we can substitute the most hazardous chemicals, though, we need to find out which ones they are. Some, like those listed above, are well known. But how many of the other tens of thousands present similar concerns? The fact is, no one knows. That's the other problem right now. There exists only very limited safety information about most of the 30,000 chemicals marketed in volumes over one tonne per year in the EU. This could be compared to selling pharmaceuticals without having first tested them for safety. No drug company may do this, yet the chemicals companies have been doing so for years. In order to be properly protected from hazardous chemicals, we need information about their safety.

Help us to persuade European politicians to vote for safer chemicals.