You notice your pet feverishly scratching and you hope that it isn’t fleas. Before you treat your pet with a topical medication, consider alternative solutions. Topical flea treatments contain chemicals that can end up in your home’s wastewater. From hand washing and laundry, these chemicals leave your home and enter the wastewater treatment plant where many of them cannot be removed. Those chemicals are discharged into the environment, posing a threat to aquatic life.  Speak to your veterinarian about less toxic alternatives or oral medications. You can also keep fleas away with environmentally friendly housekeeping such as routine washing of bedding and thorough dusting and vacuuming. Vacuuming can be quite effective at removing fleas at all stages of the life cycle.