3 Safety Precautions with DIY Cleaners

When my children were really young, I was vigilant about keeping cleaning products away from curious fingers. We had those special child-resistant locks on all of the cabinets, and anything that could potential hurt the kids, well, we stored that stuff way up high. Even I couldn’t reach them when I stood on a step stool! (Thankfully, hubby is 6’3″.)

Now that the kids are older and know better, I don’t worry so much about accidental poisonings, though I still keep cleaning products away from the dog. The last thing I need is for him to decide to “clean up” some spilled toilet bowl cleaner or something like that.

Anyway, it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about poison control, until I heard this: next week (March 15-21) is National Poison Prevention Week. And you know what causes some concern for poisonings these days? DIY cleaners.

According to a new survey from The Soap and Detergent Association, 28 percent of Americans say they have mixed their own cleaning product at home. And if they’re like I am when I made my own laundry detergent, they just tossed the ingredients in a container and called it a day. Here’s where that can be a problem: if you have to call poison control, you don’t have a traditional label to refer to.

That’s why the Soap and Detergent Association came up with some safety precautions to keep in mind when it comes to DIY cleaners. Here are 3 of them.

1. Label your DIY cleaners. The next time I whip up a batch of my laundry detergent, I’m going to get out my Label Maker and print this out: contains washing soda, borax and soap.
2. Use child-safe containers, if possible. Truth be told, I don’t know of any cleaning product that comes with a truly child safe container, like OTC medicines have child-safe tops. But you do want to make sure that whatever top you put on the container, you put it on securely.
3. Store all cleaners–even the DIY kinds and those labeled as so-called natural–out of reach of curious fingers, like I used to do.

If there’s a poison-related emergency, contact the U.S. Poison Control Center’s nationwide toll-free number: 1-800-222-1222. This is a number that you should post next to every phone in your home, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to program it into your cell phone, too.

The Soap and Detergent Association can provide more information about DIY cleaner safety here.

Tags: DIY laundry detergent