In America today, the average household is exposed to 72,000 chemicals, according to the new documentary Chemerical. The accumulated effect is degradation of health and living conditions, especially in children.

Sadly, chemicals are just about everywhere these days. 90% of Americans have Bisphenol A (BPA) in their bloodstream, which is present in many plastics. Switching to Bisphenol S (BPS) isn’t any better, which is what many plastic manufacturers have done.

Individually, all household chemicals have been labeled as being at “safe” levels, but combine BPA’s or BPS’s with nonylphenols – present in many household cleaners and pesticides – and you have created serious hormone disruptors.

We at Apple Park want to encourage everyone to go as chemical free as possible. The following are five simple ways to go chemical free.

1. Create your own cleaners! There are countless great household recipes for creating cleaners that are ecologically friendly. Read our post on 12 Eco-Friendly Household Cleaning Recipes for more information.

2. Eliminate chemicals in household cleaners. They are lurking about in most of the household cleaning products on the market today, including bleach, ammonia, air fresheners, all sorts of cleaners and laundry room products.

3.  Remove all BPA and BPS products from your home, present in many plastics. Some plastics are better than others. To be completely on the safe side, you could switch to glass or stainless steel.

4. Get rid of pesticides. They are toxic and attack the nervous system. Just smelling some types of pesticides will absorb the poison into the lungs.

5. Remove from your home all products with chemical warning labels that say: DANGER, WARNING, or CAUTION. This may feel like a big stretch, but why keep these dangerous toxic concoctions around?

Living in a way that is ecologically friendly is a benefit to everyone who comes through our homes and to the environment, so let’s all do our part to live healthy, happy lives.

Earth Day is a great, global celebration of our planet, and a great opportunity to do something special for Mother Earth. But the list of ecological needs seems overwhelming! What can any one person do to celebrate this important day in a way that is different than normal, and helpful?

We at Apple Park have come up with a few ideas for inspiration. Feel free to share and spread these ideas with anyone.

1. Talk intentionally. Take the opportunity to talk more with others about some of the ecological issues important to you. Spreading passion and education about the earth is probably the most important thing we can do.

2. Ecology project. Gather friends, family, co-workers, or others in the community together for an activity that helps the earth somehow – whether cleaning up, educating, volunteering in a community garden, or simply getting out into the countryside and learning about the local ecology.

3. Join in with the Billion Acts of Green movement. Their website has a wide range of ideas for how to be involved in caring for our earth, and it’s fun to see that our acts are joining with others to exceed a billion.

4. Take people with you to an Earth Day event. Growing in our education and exposure to today’s issues is one of the most important things we can do, and bringing in others helps to spread the effect.

5. Shop Intentionally. Buying things responsibly is a life-long endeavor, but let’s pause on Earth Day to look into where our consumable products come from, and what effect that has on the earth. From food to razor blades to gasoline, being aware of how the consumables in our lifestyle effect the rest of the world can be deeply enlightening.

6. Unplug. Most of us need electricity for our jobs and homes, but Earth Day is a great opportunity to use less energy than normal. Unplug items that aren’t in use and drive less (or bicycle if possible). See what a difference it makes.

7. E-Cycle. Take all your old, unused electronics down to a recycling depot, or resell them using services like YouRenew. According to the EPA, if we recycled 1 million cell phones we could power 19,000 homes in the USA for the year.

8. Watch a Documentary. There are many great documentaries about the current state of the earth. Take time out of the day to watch one with others.

Most importantly, let Earth Day be a day of intentionality and learning. No matter what tip for activity you are interested in, be open to learning more. It may feel like a pebble in the stream, but many, many pebbles can divert a stream completely.

Water is the source of life. We all need to drink water to survive and thrive. But water today is more contaminated than ever. In the mid-1990s scientists starting finding new chemicals in our drinking water, all of which are not regulated by the EPA. Today, there are over 80,000 chemicals that are accepted for use within the United States, and thousands more being created every year, with virtually no serious regulation.

Tests have shown that the trace amounts of chemicals in the water will vary widely across the country, depending on the medications used by the local population. Everything from aspirin to weed killer eventually finds its way flushed into the local watershed. Over the course of time, this water finds its way into our water supplies, and into our drinking cups.

Not only are there chemicals to think about, even the substances that are regulated by the EPA are allowed limited amounts. How much, over time, do we really want to be drinking and bathing in arsenic? And sadly, there are thousands of instances where local water supplies are not able to keep even to the EPA mandated limits.

Is Bottled Water Better?

Many people think the easy solution is to simply switch to bottled water, but this poses two major issues. First, the quality isn’t better! Often, it comes from tap water anyway, and if the water sits in the bottle more than 10 weeks it can contain phthalates! Second, supporting the bottled water industry leads to massive waste, and environmental degradation of local water supplies.

Do Water Filters Help?

Thankfully, there are water filters that do help, and although they may not filter out everything, they do have some effectiveness with chemicals. Good Housekeeping did a study of different kinds of filters, and found that, while there is a discrepancy between methods and brands, there are some good filters out there. Some of the most popular brands turned out to be less effective and have a short lifespan, but there are over-the-counter filters that can do a decent job of filtering out not just minerals, but tested chemicals.

Deciding on how serious to be about filtering water will depend on the water quality in your local water supply, as well as the condition of the pipes in your home. Old homes with rusty pipes will have much higher levels of contaminants, far higher than what the EPA would allow the local water supply to have. Using well water can also be hazardous.

Anyone can test their water supply. Take a sample of water first thing in the morning, before running much water. You can use a simple, inexpensive tester to see levels of TDS (total dissolved solids), and you can bring the sample to your local department of health or environmental control for more in-depth analysis.

The most important thing is to be aware, and take water filtration seriously, especially if there are children in the house. If you don’t have the patience to do all the testing, just buy a nice filtration system and be diligent about changing the filters. Your body will thank you later.