Protecting the environment includes the indoor environment and indoor air quality. One way to protect the indoor environment is not to bring indoors any products with surfactants in them. This means switching to safe, non-surfactant cleaners and laundry products. Another way of protecting the indoor environment is not to bring in grooming products that contain phthalates or other volatile organic chemicals or persistent organic particles in them. This means switching to safe, phthalate-free and VOC/POP-free grooming products. This also means switching from manufactured "perfume" fragrances to natural essential oil fragrances, the original perfume material.

Another way is not to bring in bleached recycled paper or plastic products. This includes most food packaging boxes, even organic ones (except for those that have switched to non-bleach/chlorine recycling process products), most meat and poultry trays and plastic wraps, most egg cartons, most ice cream cartons, most recycled school loose-leaf and notebook paper, most plastic bags. Another way is not to walk into the house with your shoes on. The EPA has determined that more than 50 percent of indoor air toxicity comes from petrochemical particulates tracked onto carpets from shoes (worsened when shoe soles are constructed from petrochemical based materials).

Draconian, drastic measures are needed to protect both the outdoor environment and the indoor environment. If our mega-scale free market system worked, we could demand unsafe materials be taken out of production and easily improve indoor air environments, but it doesn't, and we take what we are given while advertising campaigns convince us that what is given is great and the best and that which is what to covet.