Be Careful: Your Garden Hose Is Likely Contaminating Your Food

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Do you have childhood memories of playing outside during the summer and taking cool drinks of water from the garden hose? Many people do, and most parents probably think nothing of it, but it’s vitally important that you avoid drinking out of the hose.

In fact, if you look closely, you’ll see a warning label on most garden hoses warning you against just that. The reason? Being that garden hoses are not intended for drinking water, there are no regulations about what kinds of chemicals can be in them.

And as you might suspect, most garden hoses are far from natural. Instead, they’re primarily composed of toxic hormone-disrupting chemicals that may harm your health in numerous ways.

What’s Your Garden Hose Made Of?

The Ecology Center, a non-profit research group, tested 21 different garden hoses purchased from popular stores like Lowe’s, Home Depot, Target, and Walmart, looking for chemicals like lead, cadmium, bromine (associated with flame retardants), chlorine (which indicates the presence of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC), phthalates, and bisphenol-A (BPA).1

One-third of the hoses tested contained high levels of one or more chemicals of concern, and more than half (67 percent) were made of PVC. PVC is a significant source of exposure to chemicals known as phthalates, which are used as plasticizers.

Read More  Be Careful: Your Garden Hose Is Likely Contaminating Your Food.