Chemical house

We have just repainted our bathroom and the usual headache inducing smell is prominent in the upstairs part of the house. It reminded me that I really should have looked into 'green' paint before starting the work, so although too late this time round I decided to have a quick look. I probably shouldn't have done that!
During my search I began to realise how many chemicals and scary things there might be lurking in our house - and I can't do much about it.

Besides from all the paint which I guess we all know is not particularly healthy, there are things like carpets. Apparently synthetic carpets can release formaldehyde for years! We have several synthetic carpets in the house, not through personal choice, but they were here when we moved in and they are far too expensive to replace.Apparently formaldehyde is also present in many cheap furniture and MDF - we might just have some of that around the house as well.

On top of that it is also likely that we have something treated with brominated flame retardants as it has been widely used for all sorts of stuff, including fabrics, computers and plastics. Apparently some of these flame retardants have been proven to be hormone disrupters, including the thyroid hormone - an interesting fact for somebody like me who has taken medication on a daily basis for the last few years because of a thyroid condition...

So while I am running around cleaning with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to avoid chemicals, all sorts of unhealthy things might be oozing out of my house and its contents. Great!

I am not even safe in the garden, for all that I know the fences could have been treated with non-boron based wood preservatives, and they apparently contain nerve poisons. OK, probably only in quantities to get rid of pests, not humans - but still, not exactly eco friendly.

All this brought me back to a dilemma that I have wondered about for some time - what should I do with the stuff from my less green past. It would be rather counterproductive to just get rid of all the things I suspect of containing chemicals, not only because we don't have the money to replace it, but also because it is wrong to waste stuff that is theoretically speaking still good. On the other hand I don't really like the idea of inhaling chemicals non stop.

I am stuck and unable to decide on the best way to proceed. Short term things are easy: if you have a non-organic cucumber in your fridge it is still better to eat it than to throw it out, because otherwise all the energy used in production would be completely wasted - just make sure to buy organic in the future (if organic is your kind of thing of course).

But what about longer term things like light fittings. Trying to be green you want to have energy saving lights, but what do you do with the old ones? It is not right to just throw away a still functioning light fitting, especially not if you consider how much energy was used to produce it and transport it etc; but on the other hand there isn't much you can do with it - giving away an energy intensive light fitting isn't really a great present.

Or what if you realised that the dining table you purchased 2 years ago and planned to keep for at least another 20 actually was treated with some scary chemical. Should you just accept to inhale a few more fumes, or should you get rid of it. Even if you did decide to get rid of it how would you do it? Give it to charity so that somebody else can get poisoned instead? Burn it and release the scary stuff into the air? Clog up a landfill site with something that is in fact in a perfectly usable condition?

Once again I am not sure. Wonder if my brain is clouded from inhaling all this stuff (or maybe I just haven't inhaled enough...) Anyway I would be very happy to receive suggestions. Maybe there is a website somewhere called '10 ways to neutralise chemicals using only lemon juice' or even better 'the definitive answers to all dilemmas'. That would be good!