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Leave Dirt at the Door: How Taking Off Your Shoes Can Improve Your Health
In many cultures it's customary to remove your shoes before entering a home for spiritual or practical reasons. And as a mom, I encourage the practice because I want a clean home. But taking off your shoes not only helps keep your home cleaner, it also helps keep it healthier. Think about it. Where have the bottom of your shoes been? If you've stopped to fill up your car, you can track home gasoline on your feet. If you've walked through a freshly treated lawn or putting green, you can track home toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Seemingly benign dirt can have traces of lead in it. You walk through it, then you walk through your home leaving traces on your rug, your baby crawls past, and then stops to put her hand in her mouth. Get the picture?
The professional cleaning industry estimates that we track 85% of the dirt in our homes in from the outside on our shoes or paws of pets. In a recent warning about lead exposure, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) specifically recommends that shoes remain outside the house. According to a report called The Door Mat Study, lead-contaminated soil from the outside causes almost all the lead dust inside homes. It notes that wiping shoes on a mat and removing them at the door cuts lead dust by 60 percent. The study explains that limiting the amount of dust and track-in may also help reduce exposure to lawn and garden pesticides, wood smoke and industrial toxins, mutagens, dust mites, and allergens.
Wiping our shoes off as we enter the home reduces the amount of contaminated dirt tracked in. Large mats, that cover two or three strides, will ensure that even those that refuse to wipe will leave most of the dirt clinging to their shoes on the mat rather than your carpet
The BEST solution is to take off your shoes as you enter your home. It is a good excuse to buy some great socks or slippers. And your flooring will stay clean as well as keep dirt and potential toxic threats from getting into carpets. If going shoeless is not acceptable to family members, suggest that they wear house shoes (that don't go outside), slippers or socks.
And walking around in soft slippers, socks, or barefoot does another wonderful thing - it helps us relax and unwind.
Sources:
EPA, Lead in Paint, Dust and Soil
Housekeeping Solutions, Floor Care: Rolling Out the Welcome Mat
Small Property Owners of America, The Door Mat Study
Related Topics:
- Health eHome
- Green Cleaning Spruces Up Environment
- Going Green: Eco-Friendly Tips & Advice
- Get the Parenting & Children's Health newsletter in your inbox weekly
Labels: clean, environment, green, health and wellness
3 Comments:
We've been a shoeless house for some time now. Close friends and family know this and take their shoes of at our house. I find it awkward to request new or infrequent guests to take their shoes off. I don't, but I do make sure there's a visible spot for shoes both at our front and back door. And just today I posted(by our shoe mat) the 37 reasons to have a shoe free policy. One more reason to add: I've worked in professional kitchens (not all of them are that clean) and after a shift my shoes don't make it into the house ...one can pick up roach eggs on the bottom of one's shoes. YUCK.
Iam from Hawaii and we are shoeless in the hse. When I move to Wa my inlaws's hse is walk in with shoes but I still take off minds cause it feel weird. The floor can really be nasty. ewwww..I have a remove shoes sign by the front door but still some people walk right in with their shoes. I even got a small bench by the door for them special people who don't get it with the remove your shoes sign. I hear it on the radio about the remove of shoes in the hse why not do comercials on tv espcially during the soap opers show..
Leaving shoes at the front door is a wonderful idea especially with all the soft wonderful feeling carpets that now exist - however I'm glad to see that ms. Dern was also inclusive that those who still need to wear shoes suggest indoor only shoes. my mother is diabetic and most doctor's highly suggest to not walk around without protection on diabetic feet due to dangers with poor circulation and slow healing process in case anything is picked up in the carpet (toys, dropped items or carpet tacks) or a stubbed toe.
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