8 Steps to Have a Non-Toxic Home

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Toxicity in our products has become a hot topic over the last few years. As more research analyzes the chemicals we use and how that may be impacting us and as our access to this information increases, more and more people are concerned with understanding and limiting their exposure to toxins. 

I personally think this is an extremely important topic. I am all about reducing toxic chemical exposure where I can. I’m especially concerned with having a non toxic home as I am in the baby phase of my life and want to protect my kids. However, I’m not an extremist and I don’t swear off all chemicals or encourage you to avoid all commercial made products for fear of toxicity. 

We need to find a balance in this discussion. 

Whenever talking with my mom about the many changes in life between our generations, my mom always says, “I did it and you all survived.” I think this touches on something important. Are there potential impacts of the product choices we make and toxic load? Absolutely. But we are learning over time and the only way forward is to grow in understanding to make better choices, not live in fear. 

My mom’s philosophy may not always make the most sense. After all, people used to use lead-based makeup, which is without a doubt very dangerous and damaging, even though everyone did it. But if you’ve been born in the last century, there are not a lot of things you should be deathly afraid of or worried about that you were exposed to. And most of the very alarming things should already be removed from your home, like asbestos and lead-based paint.

Did we all consume too many BPAs as children, most certainly. Are there health consequences from this? Likely. But are we going to be okay? Largely, yes. 

The point is, most people’s concerns about toxicity are more about potential consequences and wanting to make improved choices, not about life or death. And again, all we can do at any point in our lives is learn and move forward making the best choices possible, not stress over every little headline.

So, with that perspective check in mind, what can you expect from this article?

What is considered toxic?

The toxins in your home

How to reduce toxins in your home

Summary / TLDR

What is considered toxic? What is a toxic home?

Simply, something that is toxic is either poisonous, or “very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive and insidious way.” Other definitions emphasize the capability of causing death or serious debilitation. 

A toxic home, then, would be a home that has a high level of materials, contaminants, or other matter that is poisonous, harmful, or could cause death or debilitation. 

A caveat again, most of the stuff we talk about in the natural living world is not relating to death or even debilitation. Bleach is toxic, if you drink it, you could die. That’s why we keep it out of reach of children. That’s also obvious and not what natural living or holistic health circles are talking about. 

Most people talking about reducing toxicity are worried about things like “forever chemicals, BPA, and endocrine disruptors. And even if they are not directly causing death, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about these things!

The Toxins in Your Home

There is increasing evidence about the physical, neurological, and endocrine impacts of PFAS, BPA, endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), and other similar chemicals. Typically I like to link to research as I say there is research about something. However, there is just too much good research to link right here for these specific ideas of “physical, neurological, and endocrine impacts.” You can simply type these keywords into a research database and find so much information, but I also wrote a post breaking endocrine disruptors down.

For now I will say, there are legitimate concerns about PFAs and BPAs causing cancer (not exactly causal evidence but certainly an abundance of correlation), and there is an emerging concern about the impacts of EDCs on things like puberty, child development, fertility, and birth outcomes (again, the research cannot claim causality but there is strong corollary evidence). The evidence has stacked up so much that even organizations such as major hospitals like MD Anderson, a leading cancer researcher and treatment center and Memorial Hermann have released information about how to reduce exposure to toxins in your home.

Unfortunately, these chemicals and compounds are found in so many things in your home. They are in flame retardants (which most likely coat most of your furniture and some of your clothes as well as a lot of childrens’ clothes (though a lot of companies have improved this a lot in recent years). They are in plastic, from plastic wrap to frozen dinner trays. They line cans, they are on your food via pesticides, they are in your products and in fragrances, your water, the dust of your home. 

This may sound alarming, and in a way it is. Unfortunately, our industrial and manufacturing processes have not always been safe for us or the environment and we are reaping the consequences of this. It’s arguable that it isn’t even possible to rid ourselves of all these things because of water and soil contamination and the lack of widespread adoption of better practices (if you farm without pesticides but your neighbor sprays, your food will have some of that spray, carried on the wind.)

But we are not all going to die because of this. Yes, certain mortality issues rise because of these things and quality of life is certainly impacted through child development and fertility issues, but we are not going to drop dead. Fire is not falling from the sky. Again, we must learn and make the best choices and move forward. 

So what are those best choices? How do we reduce our chemical exposure and move toward a more natural, non toxic home? Following are some practical steps you can take to reduce your exposure to these toxins and take control of your health again.

How to Reduce Toxins in Your Home

First of all, this will not be an exhaustive list of all the things you can or should do to detoxify your home, but it will be a very well-rounded start that should be manageable for most people. And as I always say, try not to get overwhelmed by doing all of the things at once. It can be difficult to make some of these changes. Some of them require changing habits we’ve had our whole lives. 

Do what you can now and continually try to improve. That’s all you can do and every small improvement you can make is better health for your family. I don’t do all of these things perfectly, but I am committed to trying as hard as I can to incorporate these practices. That’s really the best you can do.

1. Wash your hands often

You should obviously be washing your hands anyway… Because that’s just general hygiene. However, this is important for reducing exposure to toxins as well. 

We touch things all day that transfer toxins to our skin. Wall paint, treated wood, pesticides on food, contaminated dirt, household cleaners. Oftentimes, simply washing your hands will remove a good amount of chemical residue from your body before much of it gets into your system. This is especially important right before you eat, since obviously there is an increased risk of contact with your face and open mouth when you eat.

As a general rule, it is a good idea to avoid antibacterial soaps and soaps with fragrance. Just stick to plain unscented soap. It’s probably fine to use soaps scented with essential oils or herbs unless you have a sensitivity to these things.

2. Avoid products with fragrance

On that note, it is generally recommended to avoid products with chemical fragrance as they typically include phthalates and other harmful chemicals and are simply unnecessary. If you’d like to dive deeper into this, we’ve covered fragrance before. 

Again, it’s best to stick with unscented options or options scented with essential oils or other natural substances if you are not sensitive to them. There are plenty of ways to reduce odor or freshen up your home without chemical fragrance. Some examples include opening up windows when possible, using fans and vents after cooking or spraying cleaning products, diffusing essential oils, or putting citrus peels in your trash cans and garbage disposal.

3. Stick with “natural” products where possible

You simply do not need the string of chemical cleaners, questionable beauty products, and downright toxic household goods that are so abundant all around us. As we’ve discussed before, evaluate the ingredients of your products and start making purchasing choices that prioritize products with fewer toxins.

Most people can’t afford to overhaul their entire home right away and even if they could, you may be allergic to throwing money in the garbage can like I am. One way to go around this is just to make better choices on things you are replacing. If you’re buying a new couch or car seat, choose one without flame retardants. If you need new all purpose spray, opt for vinegar or an option that’s more natural than your current. If you need new face wash, choose a more natural option. You get it. 

We can reduce a ton of our toxin exposure just by becoming more aware of our daily product choices, from big to small.

For a whole list of non-toxic cleaning products you can buy or make, check out this post.

4. Reduce your use of plastic

This applies to plastic products in general and single-use plastics. 

Though plastic production has improved somewhat, plastic is plastic. It’s always going to have unwanted compounds that are probably not optimal for your health. One of the big problems with plastic is that it tends to leach into water and food. Because a lot of plastic includes BPAs, phthalates, PVC, and other EDCs, you run the risk of consuming these when you choose plastic. This is especially true if you are using plastic with heat (think a plastic pitcher for making tea or heating leftovers in a plastic container). 

Single-use plastics can be particularly problematic as well as bad for the environment. There is a lot of chemical leaching with single wrap plastics so consider avoiding highly processed, packaged foods, especially the grab and go type options.

Some easy swaps are ditching plastic leftover containers and opting for glass, using silicone baggies instead of plastic, beeswax wrap instead of plastic wrap, wooden options for toys or utensils, and glass or stainless steel drink containers. 

5. Limit your use of cans

Soda cans are known to be lined with BPAs. Even companies that have changed this are likely using similar chemicals. It’s necessary to line aluminum since it leaches a ton and is known to negatively impact health. The options are all pretty similar, though some are better than others. If you can choose glass instead, that would be a better option. BPA free liners in their tin cans but the new liners have similar chemicals that are likely just as harmful to your health. 

This is one I struggle with. It’s so much easier to throw diced tomatoes and tomato paste to my chili or to make spaghetti sauce than to make these things from scratch. Do what you can, if you can’t completely cut the use of cans, limit it. Good replacement options are frozen or dried foods.

6. Focus on your food

Unfortunately, a lot of chemicals can be found in our foods, including EDCs, because of the widespread use of pesticides. If you can’t grow your own food, which most can’t, here are some ideas to reduce food contamination.

Try to buy organic when possible. I know this can be cost prohibitive, but it is one of the best ways to reduce toxin exposure through your food. Non-organic foods are grown and preserved with toxic chemicals. If you cannot go full organic, try focusing on buying organic for the “dirtiest” foods, the ones understood to be produced using the highest levels or toxins. A great tool for this is the Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen. These are lists put out by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) that utilize analyses of USDA data to determine what foods are likely to have the least and most pesticide residue. Buy the Dirty Dozen organic and skip organic on the Clean 15. These recommendations are updated annually. 

At the very least, wash your produce! Even just rinsing them in water can remove some toxic residue, but I recommend using a vegetable wash or even just diluted apple cider vinegar (my preferred method) to clean your produce. It is an extra step, but it really doesn’t take long and, just like washing your hands, will remove some of that toxic residue before it has the chance to enter your body. I’d also recommend to do this before you put your produce away so you are not contaminating those containers, but I’ll be the first to admit I am far from perfect in doing this consistently.

Another great way to reduce toxins in your food is to cook most of your food at home (also a great way to save a ton of money!) and stick to restaurants that you know buy local or organic produce as much as possible. 

Last thing I’ll mention is to avoid non-stick and teflon cookware as these are known to be made with toxic chemicals that leach into your food. Any time heat is involved, the possibility of leaching is increased, which makes your cookware especially important. 

7. Filter your tap water

There will probably always be debates about certain substances in your water and whether they are safe for you or not. One common debate is on the addition of fluoride to municipal water. Aside from these conversations, it is unfortunately a fact that we have to deal with water contamination across the globe. This is going to be worse in some areas than others. If your water comes from or is treated in an area with heavy manufacturing or traditional farming nearby, it is more likely to be contaminated with PFAS and EDCs. But all water has some contamination, similarly to soil. 

The best thing you can do to reduce these toxins in your water is to filter your tap water. As with seemingly anything, there is some debate about what filter is best to use. Some swear by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) certification for filter quality (like this one), others argue that many filters that meet this standard are not actually doing what they claim to do. Some people swear by Berkey, while others claim that it is not up to scratch. 

I’m not going to state my opinion because that requires far more research than I’ve done. Maybe in the future I will cover this. For now, understand that NSF filters are considered effective and safe, and many consider Berkey to be the same. Keep your budget and maintenance capacity in mind when choosing a filter.

I don’t recommend buying bottled water for environmental reasons as well as the potential for plastic leaching we discussed above. There are just better options. Additionally, while refilling those giant water jugs is a better option than buying hundreds of plastic bottles or gallon jugs, I still recommend using a filter instead.

8. Clean well and often

Similarly to washing your hands, one of the best ways to remove toxins from your homes (aside from not bringing them into it in the first place) is to clean well and often. Toxins are going to accumulate, but you can do your best to capture them and dump them in the trash or down the drain. 

My biggest recommendations that are budget friendly are to wash surfaces often, wash your produce, and to dust and vacuum regularly. This can all be done with a microfiber cloth, water, vinegar, and a vacuum. Relatively inexpensive! Check out this post for a deeper dive on how to completely clean your home naturally.

If you want to add an additional item that can be a little costly, I’d also recommend an air purifier with a HEPA filter. This will help filter out the dust in the air, which carries toxins around from your shoes, your animals, and the various things coming into your house. This is not something I’ve personally invested in yet, but if I can ever convince my husband I will in a heartbeat.

Summary / TLDR

So there you have it, my 8 simple steps to create a non-toxic home and improve your family’s health:

1. Wash your hands often

2. Avoid products with fragrance

3. Stick with “natural” products when possible

4. Reduce your use of plastic

5. Limit your use of cans

6. Focus on your food

7. Filter your tap water

8. Clean well and often

If you can do these things (which mostly don’t take much money or additional time investment!), you will be well on your way to a safer, healthier home in no time. As always, tackle one thing at a time and take it as slow as you need to. Any improvement is progress and you’ve got plenty of time to work toward the home you want. 

And as I always say, don’t fear all the chemicals coming in and out of your life, but come to understand them so you can do what you can to reduce exposure where it matters. 

I hope you found this information helpful. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to shoot me an email. If you would like to receive more of this content, stay tuned for future posts and join our newsletter. I currently send monthly newsletters with the most recent posts as well as news and updates on all things holistic health and natural wellness.