Shielding yourself from toxins, and trying to live an environmentally-responsible life can seem overwhelming. There is so much more to address than paper versus plastic. Confusion leads to inaction, guilt and the continuation of old familiar habits. Easy Green Living is a guide to making changes that are incredibly easy to implement as well as understand. Today, considering home design involves much more than aesthetics. This guide to green living teaches how to make responsible choices that will improve your family's health as well as the environment.
Green Cleaning
Keeping a green household starts with the purchases you make at the store. The cleaning chapters in this book (and there are several for different areas of the home, including a laundry chapter) advise choosing plant-based, biodegradable products that are free of chlorine, ammonia, solvents, phosphates and fragrances. There is a list of ingredients commonly found in conventional cleaning products with explanations as to their toxicity. For example, inhaling chlorine can cause permanent lung damage or chemical-induced asthma.
Beauty Products
The bathroom may be filled with toxins that are rubbed into your skin on a daily basis. Hair care products, soap, moisturizer, shaving cream, cosmetics, toothpaste, fingernail products, deodorants, feminine products, powder, perfume are all potential chemical hazards we are not only voluntarily exposed to, but actually pay for. Easy Green Living shows you what to avoid, and includes a great product reference for making safer choices.
Energy-Efficient Lightbulbs
An entire chapter is devoted to lightbulbs. Buying energy-efficient lighting not only contributes to a cleaner world, but results in big money savings as well. There is a thorough breakdown of the different choices available today and their good and bad features.
Home Furnishings and Materials
When decorating, remodeling or simply making your house more environmentally-friendly, there are many options available. The chapter on sustainable, ecological home furnishings and materials makes the reader an informed consumer with wording that is easy for a layperson to understand. Explanations are given for choices in paint, flooring and carpeting, cabinets and candles.
A Great Home Reference
This book was surprisingly pleasurable to read; not something often found in the subject of the environment and toxins. Ms. Loux is very knowledgeable, and has mastered the art of simplifying complex subject matters. While addressing the sadly-polluted state of our environment can be a depressing task, Easy Green Living has a lighthearted feel which provides encouragement to readers to tackle this large problem in small ways. An excellent home reference.
Title: Easy Green Living
Publisher: Rodale, 396 p.
Author: Renee Loux
Price: $25.00
