Give Your Air Quality a Breath of Fresh Air

How often have you heard concerns about the air quality in school classrooms? I seem to be hearing it too often. It’s one more reason I was glad to be home schooling. However, it turns out that if we’re schooling at home, there’s still reason to be concerned about the air we breathe.

Maybe you think the air in your house is fresh enough, and not much of a problem. That's what I used to think, but I think you’ll find the problem with a little research you'll find this problem is much worse than you thought. The good news is that in your home you have much more control over the air you breathe. Simple choices and actions can make a big difference. Keep reading to find out what you can do in your home to make your air fresher.

In researching this matter, the first reports I read by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated air quality in the home could be 70 times worse than outside, now they are saying it can be 100 times more polluted. It’s even more polluted than the outside air of highly industrialized cities like Chicago.

From numerous sources, evidence is mounting that people are getting sick from being in their houses. Perhaps we get sick more in the winter, not due to cold weather, but due to staying in our homes more, and not opening the windows enough to ventilate. These trapped toxins and molds have been linked to lack of energy, dizziness, foggy head, breathing problems, asthma, cancer, leukemia, ADD and ADHD.

If you want to stay home to school your children, you might be as alarmed as I was to read that in one study conducted over a fifteen-year period, women who worked at home had a 54% higher death rate from cancer than women who had jobs away from the home! The study concluded that the increased death rate in the women was due to daily exposure to the hazardous chemicals found in ordinary household products. If you want to become better aware of the dangers commonly found in our homes from every day cleaners and personal hygiene products like shampoo and soaps, click here.

What Can We Do

1) Go Outside More

The way this world is designed is superb. Even when we give it unbelievable amounts of garbage and toxins, it amazing how it cleans itself. The trees, plants, winds and water system are incredibly helpful with this. It seems they do a better job cleaning house than we do.

That being said, try to get out of your house at least once a day. Try to take a walk near trees and gardens. Besides being beautiful and giving you an endless supply of study topics and projects (ie. try to identify all the trees, plants, flowers, even so-called weeds on your street and in your community), you’ll be giving your lungs a breathe of fresh air.

Our bodies absolutely require Vitamin D to stay healthy, and our bodies can get this from sunshine. Don’t stay inside during the winter, just because it’s colder. Dress appropriately, and think of reasons to go out.

2) Let the Outside In

Open blinds to let natural light in. Take it a step further and open your windows to exchange the stale inside air with fresh outside air. Turn your heat back (so you don’t heat the outside), put on a sweater, and let that outside air in.

If none of your windows open, or if you think the air outside your home is disgracefully polluted, it’s critical that you install a system that not only circulates air, but brings fresh air in from the outside. This might include a heat recovery system, filters, and/or an ultra violet light system to kill harmful bacteria without the use of chemicals.

Do you want to save money on energy costs? Have you sealed off every possible place cold or hot outside air can get in? We have too. But did you realize that by doing this, we’re slowly, but very surely, poisoning ourselves. Toxins in can’t get out. It’s one of the dilemmas of living in a new house. All the more reason to open your doors and windows.

3) Grow Some Real Plants

Ok, so we’ve got toxins in our air. How can we get them out?

Astronauts have a problem similar to apartment dwellers, and those working in office buildings. They can’t open their doors and windows either. So here’s one idea. NASA did a study and found that real houseplants can very effectively reduce toxins from the air. They even identified the 10 most effective plants for inside clean air.

Isn’t the design of our planet incredible. It’s constantly cleaning itself.

If you want an interesting research project idea, try researching “bioremediation” and/or “phytoremediation”. Have you heard of it? As you know, as humans we’ve put all kinds of crazy things in mass amounts into our soil, and made them quite toxic.

While the soil does an amazing job taking care of the problem, it seems that particular plants and trees have astounded scientists in their ability to take toxins out of the soil, reconfigure them, and render them harmless and untraceable. Incredible!

If you’re concerned about your soil quality, do some research, pick the right plant, and see if it can help your soil become more useful. Did you know Sunflower plants have been used to remove radioactive and other toxic metals like lead from soil and water? Fast growing trees like the poplar have also been used to remove toxins.

Try some hydroponics or aeroponics. You can get basic supplies from your local hardware store, and specialty products are readily available online. You’d be able to grow fresh vegetables, fruits and flowers all year in a window or in a closet. Seeds are a lot cheaper than buying at the grocery store. You could pick them just before supper!

Here’s another idea with loads of potential for science projects and making extra money. Would any fine dining restaurant nearby like to have a constant supply of fresh herbs? Hummm.

4) Reduce the Toxins You Use in Your Home

After identifying some sources of toxins in your home, find safer, non-toxic substitutes.

Want help finding the guilty parties? The television show called Marketplace did some investigation into what in our homes could be irritating our breathing and health. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend watching the show online now.

After looking at my house, I found that one of the biggest culprits in our home was cleaners, shampoos, soaps and the like.

I wanted to find an alternative, but I wanted to be able to get the products in an easy and convenient way, and even though I want to help our environment and my family’s health, I really didn’t want to pay more. Well, I finally found a company with over 300 safe (yet powerful), non-toxic household products and personal care products. Not only were they safer for my family, the products were environmentally safe as well, and that's very important to me.

The product that used to bother me the most was my dishwasher detergent. After the cycle was done, I hated opening the door and breathing the chlorine and chemical fumes. I knew they were harmful, so I’d hold my breath, open and run. I’m glad I can open my dishwasher now, see clean dishes, and not have to hold my breath.

If you want to know what my family’s using, feel free to contact me, and then you can see if it might work for your family too.

Carpets are so warm and cozy on our feet, but did you realize that we bring a lot of pesticides and chemicals in on our shoes from the outside? So take your shoes off at the door (shoes are loaded with unseen stuff from sidewalks, etc.).

5) Help the Outside Air Quality

Help the outside air by planting trees and plants on your property. Try growing them from seed. It’s great fun.

If you have more than you can plant, give them to friends or neighbours.

Consider selling them. The money you make from selling those baby apple trees, from seeds you collected, might just buy a few more books, or some other project you have in mind.

Do you use a Weed and Feed product for your lawn? Does the park down the street use them? Do you realize you’re killing weeds with a herbicide in that product? Is your lawn care company spraying pesticides on your lawn too? You, your children, and your pets are walking across you grass, bringing herbicides and pesticides into your house, and depositing them on the carpet. Then fluffy comes in and licks her paws and the baby plays on the floor. Hummm. Any problem there?

Could you change the way you take care of your lawn another less toxic way? Here’s an idea. Mix some compost, peat moss and grass seed together. Spread the mix over your lawn every year, and water it in.

How could this help? You’re giving new nutrients to your grass. Healthy grass is less likely to be attacked by little critters. The new grass seed you spread will fill in the thinner grass spots, making less room for weeds to infiltrate. Maybe it will help. I sure find it makes my grass thicker and greener.

There’s other organic ideas online as well. Do a quick search, or look for a lawn care provider that offers organic methods as well. If more people ask for it, more companies will provide it.

If you have carpets, vacuum them thoroughly. What does thorough mean? Are you sitting down? It means vacuuming back and forth over the same spot about 10 times. Did you know that the glue from new carpets are a big source of formaldehyde in the air? There are non-toxic carpets out there, but you’ll have to search for them. Press board furniture also releases fumes into the air, so solid wood is a better option. I guess we should be growing some more plants!

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