As I am sure many of you did, I grew up with bleach, ammonia, Tide, Downy, Mr. Bubble, and Twinkies. Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies were the best, and who can forget your mom's Diet Chocolate Fudge Soda, chock full of artificial sweeteners and who knows what else. Remember getting the first Equal gumballs in the newspaper insert? I do, and I ate the first one (and I still don't like aspartame). The tub got scrubbed with the worst of the worst cleaners, and then we soaked up the residue in our baths. Baby powder fights, weird concoctions of lotions to slather on, bare hands touching chemicals of all kinds. To compound my chemical exposure, when I was a teenager I got a job at a pet store. Every day, I would go in and bleach the heck out of the puppy kennels...with bare hands, inhaling the fumes. But we all turned out ok, didn't we?
Ok, let's not actually answer that.
The first green products I learned about were for cleaning. One day I was bleaching my kitchen floor...the next day I was packing up all the toxic stuff and sending it off to the garage. I started using Seventh Generation, Method, Green Works, and a few others. They were expensive and not usually effective, but I was dedicated to using green products and stuck with them. (This was before I discovered Shaklee).
Very shortly after my cleaning product revelation came my enlightenment about personal products. I packed up all our Pantene, Bath & Body Works, Johnson's and whatnot, and offered the fuller bottles to my mom and sister. What they didn't absorb (no pun intended) got squirted into the garbage or the toilet, and the bottle recycled. Ya, seriously, I stood there and emptied each bottle so I could recycle it. Who DOES that? Anyway, I was left with a few items I couldn't get rid of 'just in case' and of course I get stuff now and then that I'll never use...whether by gift or freebie or whatever. These unusables get stashed away and forgotten.
In my quest to replace everything we ever use anywhere, there was definitely a trial and error process. There have been numerous natural products that have not worked out, and end up sitting in a cabinet or closet. Just because it's natural or non-toxic doesn't mean it's going to work or be the right product for us. The Beebs and I found that out the hard way. After a very scary incident with an allergic reaction to the 'Fragrance' in a Burt's Bees baby wash (97.3% natural!), and a very humorous incident (I wasn't the one laughing) with a face wash/lotion for me where I ended up looking like I had lobster-red sunburn on my face, I realized that not everything from the health food store is going to automatically be the right product.
So the question is: Where do your abandoned products go?
Well, I suppose we can call it the product graveyard. I've definitely got one and to my husband's chagrin it is in the garage. A big old cardboard box full of Windex, bleach, wipes, bathroom cleaners, kitchen cleaners, floor cleaners and more; all full of the type of chemicals that I do NOT allow in my house anymore. Pretty much all my Shaklee cohorts have a similar box in their garage. And those personal products...? Lucky for me I've got a little extra storage space in the bathroom closet. I'll never use that paraben-laden sunscreen on the kids, or the lotions, or makeup, or hair products, but there it sits. I don't even use perfume, though I have half-dozen bottles of it sitting in the closet.
Crazy, you say? I'll admit to a little crazy. But the thing is...I've done a lot of research on this stuff. I might seem paranoid or over-the-top to some, and others might say they are way too attached to their signature fragrance or mascara or favorite bathroom cleaner to ever give it up. Fine. I'm not trying to convince you to give up what you love. Do what you want. But be informed about what it is you are bringing into your home or putting on your body, especially if you have kids at home. I could use this opportunity to tell you how great and green and non-toxic everything Shaklee makes is and how that's mostly what we use now, but me selling you better products is not the point here.
The point is simply: When you've come to your senses and learned enough about the ill-effects chemicals can have on your family's health, and you replace all your bad stuff with good stuff, there is a solution for all those unused products! And it's not that you have to stand at your garbage can squirting out six bottles of Johnson's baby lotion!
The easiest and most economical way to get rid of these chemicals is to use them up. Then you can recycle the bottle and be done with it. If you don't want to do that, and I don't blame you for not, read on.
Toxic products can't actually be recycled, per se. Disposing of chemicals improperly can cause a lot of environmental problems like soil and water contamination...check out what happens from chemical runoff. You can take your stuff to a hazardous waste collection facility, or most communities often host events for gathering all the unwanted products...and some even do it year-round. Contact your village or your local solid waste or sanitation department to find out when and where you can take yours. Hopefully there isn't some dude in each town with a garage full of cardboard boxes...
For anyone who didn't notice the first time...let me point out that these products are considered hazardous waste! If they have to be taken to a hazardous waste collection facility to be disposed of...why are you using them in your home?!?!
To find out what products are bad, check out this awesome glossary, or visit EWG and Cosmetics Database. To get the green and non-toxic products that you now know are much better for you, go here. My intention is to educate you about healthier products so you can make better choices. If your choices include Shaklee, great. If not, that's ok too. I am just as happy hearing that you learned something here and will stop using the toxic chemicals you've read about!!
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