Toxicity in Consumer Products

As an assignment for my Sustainable Marketing class, we were asked to choose one of our frequently used personal care products and check the toxicity levels of its ingredients. The product I chose was my soft contact lens solution because I use it everyday near a pair of reasonably valuable organs.

Alcon Opti Free Express

When looking at an ingredients list I always laugh the tendency of ingredient names to get progressively longer and more difficult to pronounce as you move down the list. My contact solution was certainly no exception, with ingredients beginning at “sodium citrate” and ending at “myristamidopropyl dimethylamine”. Whew, that last one is a mouthful, and it doesn’t sound particularly healthy.  A quick check of the ingredients yielded only one highly toxic ingredient: boric acid. The ingredient is an inorganic compound that is considered a “high hazard” at level 7 toxicity.

What does all this mean exactly? Cancer, reproductive and non-reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity and irritation. Does it mean that I will stop using the product? Not likely. Contact lens solution is something that is directly prescribed by my eye doctor, and changing it is a fairly disruptive behavior that I simply do not see myself doing. I also cannot simply eliminate the use of the product, nor do I expect other brands of solution to be any healthier. I use such a small amount of the solution, an even smaller amount comes into contact with my eyes, and an even more minuscule percentage of that solution contains a harmful additive (boric acid).

The only alternative I could take in eliminating the use of this solution is to only wear glasses. Again, this is a fairly disruptive change, and I am not sure that I am ready to make such a transition.