Turning Dreams Into Reality....

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Extreme Couponing

There is a show on TLC called Extreme Couponing.  It's incredible to watch these people collect their coupons, organize them and plan their trips to the store.  It amazes me how they can walk out of the store with hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in merchandise and have paid a few dollars in some cases.  I saw a show yesterday where the store ended up owing the customer 32 cents... when she got hundreds of dollars worth of products.

These people are consistent, that's for sure.  It is an art to be able to save that much money!  WOW!

However... yes... there is a "however".  Something that came to my mind while watching a recent show was the safety aspect of stocking all those cleaners and laundry products in the home.

For "home use" MSDS are not required... MSDS of course are the Material Safety Data Sheets that are provided to protect people and educate on proper handling of products.... generally in a setting such as a storage warehouse.  Most average consumers would never think to read an MSDS on their laundry detergent.  I think at this point with society, we all know the cleaners and laundry products contain toxic chemicals... but do we really understand the ramifications?

All of the toxic chemicals in these products do something called out-gas.  This means that even when the bottles are sealed, we are still breathing in the chemicals they emit into the air.  

So let's think about this for a moment.  If you have a laundry detergent in your home that contains bleach... you are breathing in that bleach constantly.  But, the average household has one bottle/package.... Extreme couponers may have 50 to 100 of these bottles/packages.  Wow.  That is very scary.

There is a way to properly store products that contain chemicals... but now people are stock-piling these toxic products in hall closets, basements, garages, kids bedrooms, etc....

Sure, the extreme couponer may be getting an amazing deal at the grocery store checkout... but at what cost? 

How many "average consumers" think to look up the MSDS on the products they have in their homes?  Should MSDS be mandatory for all households so that consumers know exactly what they have in their homes?

There is a great website called Skin Deep where a consumer can look up the tocitity rate of their personal care products like shampoo, bubble bath, makeup, kids products.... but what about cleaners and laundry? 

Come on people... we need to do our research.  We don't believe everything we see on TV.... do we?  Then why do we just trust these manufacturers who are developing the products we clean our homes and clothes with?

Aren't we educated enough to know we should check things out?

Just some food for thought....

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