M1.5 Blog Assignment: Environmental Health Home Assessment
The home environmental health and safety assessment tool was a great way to assess how much (or how little) I know about my apartment's environmental health and safety. The most important thing I learned was how little I understood or even cared about the environmental aspects around my apartment. Thankfully, I knew that my apartment was built within the last 5 years, which was able to answer the first few questions for me. Older homes, such as homes built in the 1970's often have environmental hazards such as lead-based paints that may be peeling or chipping, or even use of asbestos that may be inhaled continuously. I understood that many of the questions on the assessment tool pointed to environmental health risks such as mercury poisoning, carbon dioxide poisoning, fire hazards, and water contaminants among other things.
Some environmental risks that stood out to me in my home was my usage of air fresheners, candles and strong cleaners. Considering my background as an ICU nurse, I am very conscious of viruses and bacteria, and therefore clean my apartment obsessively. However, that often translates into using the most powerful cleaners possible. I haven't looked into using natural cleaners, or even organic based candles to reduce hazardous air and chemical pollutants that I am putting into my home.
While I live in a very well cared for apartment complex with strict regulations, ultimately I believe that whoever lives in a home should be responsible for caring for their own home-based environmental health. If I am living in my own apartment, I should care enough about my home to consider the environmental contribution to my health.
Sabrina - It's funny (perhaps a bit scary) but I had some of the same realizations while I was assessing my apartment. I try to use organic/natural cleaners whenever possible but there are times when I have felt like the only way to get the job done is to break out the Dawn and the bleach to get the job done. I find it challenging to find the right balance sometimes, because on the one hand I want to protect myself against harmful chemicals, but I also want to eliminate germs in my living space. I too am a nurse and am always worried about bringing hospital germs home with me. I am not sure about you, but while I was previously in the practice of calculating personal risk associated with harsher household cleaners, I did not really consider the fact that after I scrub the tub with the "powerful stuff" the contaminated water flows down the drain and back into the shared water supply.
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