TOXIC FREE

A consumer advocate on a 30-year mission to get toxins out of homes and other places explains how to do it—and save money on medical expenses later.

In a single day in 1982, Dadd (Home Safe Home, 1997, etc.) threw out everything in her house she deemed toxic and soon felt much healthier. In this updated version of her original toxins-shedding book, published in 1984, the author goes room-by-room with advice on what to toss, what products or concoctions work perfectly well as nontoxic alternatives and where to find them. The information is well organized and enlightening, and some of the alternatives can be easily made at home. In stores, she writes, nontoxics are more readily available and clearly labeled than ever before—provided the buyer knows what to look for. A wrinkly plain cotton sheet, for instance, is not treated with formaldehyde like the stay-pressed kind. Just be sure to use a nontoxic ironing pad. Dadd is careful to disclose that she is not a doctor, toxicologist or scientist; she is an educated consumer who, like a friendly neighbor, provides readers the benefit of all that she has learned. Her strongest counsel is that these predominantly synthetic toxins, most of them petrochemicals, are making people sick as they waft into indoor air and seep through the pores. A competent reference tool for those concerned about the explosion of toxics in our daily lives.