Healthy Home Goods

Who can use the Healthy Home Goods catalog?

Through the Healthy Opportunities Pilot, Caja Solidaria is able to put the power of collective purchasing to work for our members living with chronic health conditions.  With a prescription for healthy home goods, members can select from this catalog of home goods designed to reduce environmental triggers in the home.  Your prescription will come with a budget, an expiration date, and sometimes recommendations from your care coordinator.  Caja staff will provide you with all that information.

Our staff currently cannot support members who want to purchase these items directly, but we are always willing to help you learn to develop a small buying club and use our platform to collectively purchase healthy cleaning supplies.

Have questions?  Send Larissa an email at larissa@cajasolidaria.org.  

How do we choose items to include in this catalog?

We have reviewed the science on indoor air quality, health, and different certifications available for products that seek to reduce environmental triggers in the home.  The American Lung Association groups the sources of indoor air pollution as coming from

• building and furnishings, including paint, flame retardants, carpets, rugs, and lead

• fuel-burning appliances, including cooking stoves, wood stoves, kerosene heaters

• moisture which leads to mold

• living with pets and pests, including pet dander, dust mites, and cockroaches

• scents and chemicals in cleaning supplies

Reducing exposure to environmental triggers means replacing furnishings and rugs that have formaldehyde as flame retardants, glues and paints with volatile organic compounds, cleaning supplies to natural alternatives, removing moldy, dusty, or infested items from the home.

Other prescription services such as home remediation can help with removing mold from the home and replacing unsafe appliances.

After reviewing the different certification programs, we developed our catalog based on the following principles:

• We purchase from organizations and companies that were developed with indoor air quality as a central part of their vision.  Azure Standard is a great example, with a continuous review of product standards to ensure healthy ingredients.  We also love Azure because they support cooperative buying and build community through their business model.

• We look for third-party certifications that ensure that indoor air pollutants are not present in the product.  Some of the third-party certifications we trust are:

  • UL Greenguard Certification for Indoor Air Quality.  All Ashley Furniture Products are Greenguard certified.

  • The Global Organic Textile Standard

  • OEKO Textile Standards

• We give preference to items that come from organizations that have practices that increase health equity, such as fair labor practices.  We chose the Joss & Main Rug for this catalog because it comes with Goodweave Certification

• We are a learning organization, so please share information with us so that we can curate the list that best serves the health needs of our community.