How to detox your apartment

Short-term contact with one toxin in small amounts isn't going to kill you, Fox News reports. Depending on your sensitivities, you might experience fewer allergy and asthma symptoms, headaches and skin irritations. Long-term you may even lower your risk of infertility and cancer, said Phil Brown, director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University in Boston.

We talked to environmental health experts to find low-effort, high-impact ways to minimize your toxic load and boost your health. Try a couple of these, or more, to really clear the air.   

Leave shoes at the door to keep out 80 percent of the crud they track in. 

Indoor air can be five times as polluted as outdoor air, so open the windows whenever the weather and your heating budget permit.

Some plastic containers can leach out a chemical called bisphenol-A (BPA), which is known to tamper with our hormones. So avoid plastics marked with a 7, which may contain BPA, and never put BPA-containing plastics in the microwave or dishwasher; BPAs are more likely to leach out when heated. Buy fresh or frozen foods, and look for glass or cardboard packaging when possible. The good news: BPA passes out of the body quickly.

For dusting, instead of sprays (which add to your chemical load) or feathers (which just kick up more dust), use dry, unscented microfiber cloths, which attract dirty particles instead of scattering them.

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