Hidden Household Chemicals
An Excerpt from Shopsmart
Finding the right vacuum and avoiding the wrong air cleaner can help you keep your home’s dust and particulate levels down to reduce indoor air pollution, which can be a serious health issue. That’s maybe half the battle. The rest involves products around your home that can emit potentially hazardous or irritating fumes. Some, like nail polish and certain household cleaners, are obvious. But others are sneakier, as the chart below shows.
WHERE FORMALDEHYDE HIDES
Furniture, flooring, textiles, paints, and even electronics can emit fumes, especially when you first bring them home. For example, formaldehyde, a probable carcinogen and allergen, is used in glues and resins of pressed-wood materials including particleboard, hardwood plywood, and medium-density fiberboard. Those materials are common in new kitchen cabinets, flooring, furniture, and shelving, and they can continue to emit formaldehyde into the air after they are installed.
Textiles, like drapes or bed linens, that are wrinkle resistant or permanent press might also have been treated with formaldehyde-based finishes. If you buy these products, consider airing them out first or washing them before using them.
THE PERILS OF PAINT
Paints and paint strippers can release a variety of volatile organic compounds when they’re applied, as they dry, and when they’re stored. Ongoing exposure to VOCs from a variety of products (cleaners, personal-care products, furniture, and glues) can contribute to short and long-term memory impairment; eye, skin, and respiratory irritation; and even organ damage and cancer, depending on the specific chemicals and the extent of the exposure.
We recently tested a variety of paints with labels claiming no or low VOCs, and we detected VOCs in all of them. However, several had very low levels of the compounds (none exceeded government limits) and were also top performers. Of course, always have proper ventilation when using any paint or stripping product.
BANNED IN EUROPE
New electronics and plastics can also emit chemicals. These include flame retardants, which are coated on and inside many electronics products, and phthalates, used as plasticizers, which can be dispersed into the air and combine with dust.
Air out any new electronics and vacuum regularly around computers, printers, and televisions, because fire-retardant chemicals can be released over a longer time period. Some of these chemicals, such as certain types of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, have already been banned in Europe, and the debate in this country continues. Meanwhile, you can improve your indoor air quality quickly using this simple rule of thumb: If you smell something, open a window.
7 SOURCES OF INDOOR AIR POLLUTION: |
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Possible Pollutant Source |
What is the problem? |
What Can You Do? |
Carpet (New) |
Carpet materials can emit a variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). |
If you have carpet installed, ask for low-VOC, formaldehyde-free adhesives.
Air out new carpeting for a few days before installing it. After it’s laid, keep windows open in the room and run a fan for two or three days. |
Compact fluorescent lights (broken) |
If they break, CFLs can emit mercury, a neurotoxin, in small amounts into the air. Carpets cannot be fully cleaned of mercury and vacuums should not be used to pick it up. |
Don’t use CFLs in lamps that could easily tip, especially in homes with children or pregnant women.
If a CFL breaks, open a window, shut off central air, clear the room for 15 minutes, and follow the EPA cleanup guide. |
Electronics and other plastic products (new) |
Products made with polyvinyl chloride can emit phthalates, which have been linked to hormonal abnormalities and reproductive problems.
Plastics can also release flame-retardant chemicals, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, which have been linked to neurobehavioral changes in animal studies. |
Ventilate space until the chemical odor dissipates.
Vacuum around computers, printers, and televisions regularly. |
Glues and adhesives |
They can emit VOCs, such as acetone or methyl ethyl ketone, that can irritate the eyes and affect the nervous system. Rubber cement can contain n-hexane, a neurotoxin. Adhesives can emit toxic formaldehyde. |
Look for water-based, formaldehyde-free glue. Work in a well-ventilated space and don’t get too close to your work. |
Heating equipment (stoves, heaters, fireplaces, chimneys) |
Heating equipment, especially gas stoves, can produce carbon monoxide, which can cause headaches, dizziness, fatigue, and even death if not ventilated properly. It can also emit nitrogen dioxide and particulates, which can cause respiratory problems and eye, nose, and throat inflammation. |
Hire a professional to check that your boiler or furnace is working properly every year and keep chimneys and other heating equipment well-maintained.
Install carbon-monoxide alarms and use a hood over kitchen stoves |
Paints and strippers |
Latex paints are a big improvement over oil-based paints because they emit fewer chemical fumes. But as they dry, all paints can emit VOCs, which can cause headaches, nausea, or dizziness.
Paint strippers, adhesive removers, and aerosol spray paints can also contain methylene chloride, which is known to cause cancer in animals. |
When applying paint, open windows or doors, ventilate the space with fans, and wear a respirator or mask.
Pregnant women should avoid using paint strippers with methlyene chloride. |
Upholstered furniture and pressed-wood products (hardwood plywood, wall paneling, particleboard, fiberboard) |
When new, many furniture and wood products can emit formaldehyde, a probable carcinogen that can also cause eye, nose, and throat irritation; wheezing and coughing; fatigue; skin rash; and severe allergic reactions. |
Use exterior-grade pressed-wood products (they’re lower-emitting because they contain phenol resins, not urea resins).
Look for formaldehyde-free furniture and wood products |
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For further information, call 800-821-4147, or visit the newly designed Arnco website at www.arnconet.com
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