You’ll usually need different products to maintain the cleanliness and appeal of your home. For example, you might need bleach to remove tough stains on different surfaces around your home. You might also use various cleaners to maintain the condition of your appliances and amenities.
Although beneficial, cleaning products can pose serious risks to your household. When not handled properly, bleach can irritate the skin, lungs, and eyes. In worse cases, bleach may cause severe symptoms, such as abdominal discomfort, muscle weakness, migraines, and vomiting.
Fortunately, you can still use different cleaning products and other workshops, auto, or lawn chemicals, as long as you know how to properly and safely handle these. Take note of the tips below to learn how.
1. Educate Yourself With The Products At Home
It’ll be challenging for you to determine how hazardous a product is if you don’t know its ingredients or how it works. Misinformation can also cause a lot of stress as you’ll be looking over your shoulders all the time, especially if you have kids and pets at home.
To properly handle hazardous materials at home, begin by educating yourself with each product, its purpose, and location. This will enable you to determine how to use the products properly and what are the possible risks when mishandled.
- Ideally, you should start by learning more about these products:
- Automotive fluids, such as brake fluid, fuel, and windshield washer fluid.
- Barbecue products, like lighter fluid, propane, and charcoal briquettes.
- Garden and lawn products, namely pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides.
- Household cleaners, such as ammonia, bleach, and furniture fluid.
- Health and beauty products, like hairspray, fingernail polish, and hair colouring products.
You’ll be surprised how some of these products are hazardous. For example, drain cleaners are known to effectively unclog drains. Although these could be very harmful when they come in contact with your skin or when you breathe them.
When you’re equipped with this information, you’ll know it’s best to use https://www.ecospill.com.au/products/absorbents/acid-neutraliser/ and other similar products. This is useful if your drain cleaner accidentally gets spilled on the floor. The more you know about the products you use and have at home, the easier it’ll be for you to minimize safety hazards.
2. Read The Product Labels
Labels contain information about the content and instructions on how certain products should be handled. Even if you’ve been using bleach, ammonia, and drain cleaners for years, it’s always important to read the labels. This is especially important if you often change brands.
Most hazardous products used in homes often have these words on the labels:
- Poison: These products can injure or kill a person when absorbed in the skin, inhaled, or ingested.
- Toxic: These products can cause injury or death when absorbed in the skin, swallowed, or inhaled.
- Irritant: These products can cause severe swelling of the skin, eyes, and respiratory system. Excessive exposure to products with this label can also cause soreness.
- Flammable: These products easily catch fire.
- Corrosive: These products contain vapours or chemicals that destroy living tissues.
After reading the labels of the products you have at home, you’ll know where the best location to store them. For example, when you identified that some of your cleaning products are flammable, you’ll have to store them away from ignition sources, such as flames and hot surfaces.
3. Keep Out Of Reach Of Children
If you have children at home, make sure cleaning products and other hazardous materials are stored in areas they can’t reach. Children are often curious and would likely touch and even eat anything they can get their hands on. This puts them at high risk of experiencing the severe effects of household products if these aren’t kept properly.
To handle hazardous materials at home, store them in overhead cabinets and lock them properly. Make sure that these materials are kept in their proper storage space every after use.
If your kids are old enough, take time to teach them about the dangers of these chemicals and what will happen to their bodies if they accidentally touch, inhale, or ingest them. Let them understand how they should never play with these products.
4. Never Store Chemicals With Food
One rule of thumb to follow when handling hazardous materials is to never store them with food products. Hazardous materials contain chemicals that might spill and contaminate your food. Some cleaning products are too strong that these should never be used in areas where food is prepared and consumed, namely in the kitchen and dining area.
5. Never Store Flammable Gasses Or Liquids At Home
Lighter fluid is a staple among many households as this product can take out crayon marks, scuff marks on the floor, and even cooking-oil stains on clothes. Lighter fluid can also remove chewing gum stuck in the hair. Although small and useful, you should never store lighter fluid and other flammable gasses or liquids at home. This will only put your entire family’s safety at risk and might even cause house fires.
Flammable gasses and liquids should be stored outside the house, preferably in sheds that are well ventilated. In this way, flammable vapours from the products don’t build up in the space. Thus, it helps in reducing your risk of health problems and fire.
6. Keep Chemicals In Its Original Containers
Transferring food and other products to the same containers is a great way to keep your home organized. This is probably the reason why videos of individuals reorganizing their pantries gain millions of views online.
However, when it comes to hazardous materials, you should never transfer them to other containers. Doing such acts is hazardous for many reasons. One, cleaning products and other hazardous materials might be mistaken for drinks. Two, transferring products to other containers might result in adverse chemical reactions, especially if the container isn’t built to support the contents of the product.
Safety Comes First
Although, these products will make your life convenient as a homeowner but keep in mind that using these will require more responsibility. If you consistently follow the tips presented in this article, you can continue to use different products at home without compromising the safety of your family. These tips are easy but will surely go a long way in keeping your house clean and safe.