Clean Planet

What exactly are VOCs?
Certain compounds, due to their chemical composition, can easily convert to a gaseous form. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) fall into this category, which means that when they are released from specific products, they can immediately take form as vapor or gas in our atmosphere. This makes them insidious, widespread, and difficult to control. VOCs are found in various everyday products: gasoline, paints, glue, cleaning products, and so much more. Ever been jokingly told that your hairspray was impacting the ozone levels? Well, it probably was.

How do Volatile Organic Compounds affect the environment?
VOCs don't act alone. Once they are released, they interact with other chemicals in the air called nitrous oxides, and the combination of the two creates the ozone which eventually detracts from an otherwise beautiful day in the form of smog. In addition to its aesthetic impacts, smog is terrible for the environment. It can cause respiratory distress, damage people's lungs and immune systems, destroy crops and plants of all sizes, and even kill animals.
What can consumers do to help?

We can all agree that animal death, crop destruction, and lung damage are extreme problems for humans and the environment. But what can we do as consumers to limit our use of VOCs? Keep it simple: carpool to use less fuel, keep the heating or cooling down in homes, limit that aerosol hairspray use, and choose to do business with companies that make the ethical and sustainable pledge to use decreased levels of VOCs in their products. Clean Planet significantly limits the use of VOCs in our products, using alternative ingredients if at all possible.

In our modern world, VOCs are too ubiquitous to avoid completely but by becoming educated on their risks and minimizing your use whenever possible by choosing your consumer products carefully, making sensible lifestyle choices, and using companies such as Clean Planet, you can help make a positive environmental impact.