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The Most Toxic Home Products

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You expect to find toxic chemicals in cleaning products and pesticides. But you wouldn't think toxins could be in your bed--or worse yet, your infant's crib.

Unfortunately, harmful chemicals can be found in the foam in your bed and nursing pillows and in many more everyday products, including deodorants, air fresheners, plastic bottles and some pots and pans coated with Teflon. To boot, it's nearly impossible to rid these toxins from our homes.

Even environmental scientists find it incredibly difficult to live toxin-free. Heather Stapleton, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry at Duke University, says many toxic chemicals are found in foam, which contains flame-retardant chemicals that are associated with neurological and developmental problems in children.

In Pictures: The Most Toxic Home Products

"A lot of kids' products have these chemicals in them, like rocking chairs and changing tables," says Stapleton. "I have a lab so I've been able to analyze many products, but I recently found that the mattress my 10-month-old son slept on at day care had flame retardants. I went out and bought an organic mattress for him."

Experts believe that children have the highest exposure to toxic chemicals. Kids pick up a lot of dust when they play and toxins stick easily to dust and dirt.

"We've found significantly high levels of these chemicals in indoor dust," says Stapleton. "There is even a low-level amount found in our food."

Ironically, using flame retardants in foam products stems from a California regulation created in the 1980s to protect children. As a result, many manufacturers added flame retardants in their products.

The flame-retardant chemicals that were used the most until recently are called polybrominated diphenylethers, or PBDEs. Not only were PBDEs found in children, they were also discovered in the breast milk of young mothers. PBDEs were voluntarily phased out by U.S. manufacturers starting in 2004 because of mounting evidence of their toxicity.


To keep up to code, though, manufacturers have merely replaced PBDEs with other chemicals. The replacements are little better, says Stapleton, who is currently doing a study with 100 different baby products. From her research so far Stapleton has discovered that these alternative flame retardants can be just as toxic as PBDEs.

Flame retardants are also in many electronic products; they're sprayed on circuit boards or plastic casings. The most commonly used group of retardants in electronics are brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which have been linked to poor brain development as well as learning, behavior and memory problems in children.

Casey Harrell, coordinator of Greenpeace's electronics campaign, says the organization studied 100 homes and found BFRs in each home at various levels. Harrell says small amounts of BFR leach out of electronic devices and collect in dust.

"We get a lot of mothers who want to get all these chemicals out of their home immediately," says Harrell. "We tell them, you're going to have a really hard time. This stuff is pretty pervasive, it's not like you can just get the broom out and sweep them away."

BFRs aren't the only dangerous chemicals in electronics. Chemicals called phthalates are used on wires and cables to soften the plastic that encases them, making them bendable and flexible. Phthalates have been linked to disrupting the functioning of the endocrine system, which controls growth and development in children. The European Union banned phthalates from children's toys in 2005.

One way to conduct a "home detox" is to be a more conscious consumer. Read product labels. As a rule of thumb, the fewer chemicals a product contains, the better. "We urge people to really take a look and take the time to consider the products they are using," says Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

Stapleton and Harrell also advise consumers to take action outside their homes. "You can do what you can in your home, and I commend people for that," says Harrell. "But we can't live in a bubble. We have to push these manufacturers to phase the chemicals out completely and for laws to ban and eliminate them."

In Pictures: The Most Toxic Home Products

Follow Oliver J. Chiang on Twitter or e-mail him at ochiang@forbes.com.

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