The Life Cycle of a Windex Bottle

We'll begin our journey in the factories where the plastic Windex bottles are made. PETE plastic or Polyethylene terephthalate, identified by the number one, is known to leach harmful chemicals into most any liquid if stored at a warm temperature. One chemical, DEHA (Diethylhydroxylamine), has been shown to cause liver problems, reproductive issues, and is suspected to cause cancer. PET, or PETE plastic is used for soft drink bottles, water bottles, some juice containers, sports drinks, mouthwash, ketchup, and salad dressing. It can also be found in some food jars such as peanut butter, jelly, and pickles as well as in microwavable food trays. This plastic is made in oil refineries, workers are surrounded by the toxic fumes causing serious health problems for them. The people living in the vicinity of these plants also suffer, about as much as the workers inside do.  

 This is a small video on plastic bottles by How It's Made.    

   

 After the plastic bottles are made they are shipped to one of S.C. Johnson's 70 factories, which are spread world wide. In these factories ingredients such as Water, Isopropyl Alcohol, Propylene Glycol, 2-Hexoxyethanol, Ammonium Hydroxide, Mirapol® Surf S-210, Videt EGM,  Sodium C14-17 Sec-Alkyl Sulfonate, Fragrance from SC Johnson Fragrance Palette, and Liquitint® Sky Blue Dye are mixed together. S.C Johnson is very secretive about how any of their products are actually made, how their factory workers are actually treated, and what is even in their products. Since S.C. Johnson is such a huge company they are the only ones talking about how their employees are treated, being a multimillion corporation, they sugar coat everything! Ammonia gas is toxic if breathed in, sometimes even fatal. It also has a corrosive effect on the skin and eyes, and being exposed to it over time can harm the respiratory system. So for the factory workers to be safe they would pretty much need to be dressed like astronauts! But since big companies are so worried about expenses, the workers are probably around these toxic chemicals with little to no protective equipment on! The fragrance added to Windex, or any S.C. Johnson company, could even be more dangerous than the ammonia! We can't be sure since they keep their fragrance ingredients proprietary.
 This is a great spoof video by Women's Voices For The Earth that really makes fun of S.C. Johnson and their "proprietary" fragrances.

 Then, after we use Windex and spray it around and breathe it in a bit, the plastic spray bottle heads right to the landfill to sit there for a thousand or so years. And though Windex claims to use 50% post consumer recycled material, that's impossible since reprocessed polythelene terephthalate loses some of it's properties when recycled so the amount of recycled content can't exceed 10%. Also the plastic used for recycling is mostly leftovers from the factory, not the bottles that you put in the recycling bin due to impurities.
 I for one don't believe that small children (or anyone) should breath this stuff in! Next time you think about spritzing any S.C. Johnson product in your home, think twice before you breathe those potential cancer causing chemicals in!

Resources 

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate
• http://www.medicinenet.com/plastic/page2.htm
• Tapped The Movie 
• https://www.scjohnson.com/en/company/locations.aspx 
• http://www.whatsinsidescjohnson.com/en-us/products-by-brand/windex/windex-original-glass-cleaner.aspx 
• https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=health+effects+of+ammonia