Six Classes of Chemicals

Highly Fluorinated:
I did not know that highly fluorinated chemicals were man made or that they were primarily used for non-stick and water resistant products. Its pretty horrible, and crazy, to think that 98% of Americans are living with this inside them! The fact that carcinogens as toxic as this are so incredibly common in Americans is extremely troubling; especially when considering that they never breakdown and come with an array of health problems outside of "simply" cancer.

Antimocrobials:
These chemicals are supposed to kill/inhibit the growth of microorganisms and are once again found in many household items. These chemicals can inhibit/kill good microorganisms and are dangerous when ingested by humans and many animals. Unfortunately they are often found in humans, especially in breast milk where they are then ingested by infants.

Flame Retardants:
Unfortunately these chemicals are added in to many products to help them meet fire regulations. I though it was interesting to learn that these chemicals only hinder flames by generally 2 second and that they do real harm in the toxic smoke they give off. How crazy to think that the smoke of these things is more dangerous than the flames which they are supposedly working to stop. It almost seems as though having the flames run their course would be more worthwhile than having these chemicals create toxic smoke.

Bisphenols:
These chemicals are hormone disruptors and are usually found in plastics. The thing I found most frightening about these chemicals is that they "leach" into things like water and food. This makes it feel like they are harder to remove from our systems and homes unless these items are simply 100% removed; its not like you can clean these chemicals off of our products.

Solvents:
Air contaminant like solvents are often toxic and can be avoided. These chemicals are found in items like nail polish, paint, and cleaning products and can cause an array of respiratory problems as well as end up in drinking water as they seep through soil into groundwater. I liked that this video suggested one very simple solution for stopping solvents like cleaning products by just using water for your cleaning needs. Often advertising makes us feel like we need these chemicals to wipe down "dirty" surfaces, but that's not always the case.

Metals:
Metals are not something that I often think of as chemicals - I am 100% aware that some are toxic but it still is something I tend to forget until reminded. These metals end up in food and drinking water and end up ingested by humans. The biggest takeaway from this video for me was that these chemicals usually effect children while prenatal and/or early life exposure. Its always hard to hear that these things effect children more than any other population.