A new and efficient toxicity and/or odor reducing method for ethyl acrylate and/or acrylonitrile containing aqueous polymer dispersion is disclosed, which comprises contacting a sufficient amount of an ethyl acrylate/acrylonitrile scavenging compound with a stable aqueous dispersion of a polymer to form a polymeric dispersion that contains less than 1 ppm of ethyl acrylate and less than 1 ppm acrylonitrile; wherein the polymer contains a) polymerized units of acylonitrile and/or ethyl acrylate and b) at least 5 ppm of ethyl acrylate and/or acrylonitrile monomers; and wherein the ethyl acrylate/acrylonitrile scavenging compound are contacted with the dispersion independently from contact of the dispersion with any redox pairs.