When you walk out of the house with a strange white blotch on the back of your purple shirt, and your kids have stopped giving you their laundry. Sure, bleach is great — it kills germs, and in this day and age of “everything is bad for you,” the CDC still recommends bleach as a must for every home. But there is too much of a good thing. Really. See also weird white blotches on your daughter’s favorite purple shirt. And this little fact: “Chlorine bleach releases dioxin, furans, and other organochlorines into the air, can cause sore throats, coughs, wheezing, shortness of breath, fluid in the lungs, and studies have shown a relationship between dioxin exposure and cancer, birth defects, and developmental/reproductive disorders.” If you’re ready to break the addiction, try some of these on for size:
- Lemon Juice. Squeezed into the laundry, it will give you that same boost of whiteness.
- Baking Soda. Use it to pre-soak set-in stains or throw a half cup into the wash cycle to whiten your whites — it’s safe on darks too.
- Vinegar. A perfect disinfectant, this is an option for spots outside of the laundry room where you would have used bleach to kill germs.
- Non-chlorine Bleach. If you’re still addicted, try a safer alternative. Seventh Generation and a host of other companies make options that are free of chlorine. Image via Seventh Generation
