Indoor Pollution: Safeguard Yourself and Your Family Against Hidden Contaminants, at Home and at Work

by Steve Coffel

Overview

We all know there are health hazards in the air outside, but this powerful new book warns that we aren't safe within our homes or offices either. The most comprehensive work available on this pressing issue covers publicized pollutants like asbestos, radon, and cigarette smoke, as well as the secret contaminants in our heating, electrical, and plumbing systems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307788511
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/06/2011
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	278
File size:	8 MB

Read an Excerpt

1
AN OVERVIEW
 
Notions about the sanctity of home run deep in literature, religion, and philosophy. “What is more agreeable than one’s home?” asked the Roman orator Cicero, a sentiment seconded in Sir Edward Coke’s oft-quoted statement: “A man’s house is his castle.” Much more recently, Dorothy was sent spinning back to Kansas from the Land of Oz by chanting: “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”
 
But scientists are discovering that our homes may not actually be the safe and secure places we have long assumed. In fact, some alarming research suggests that the air inside American houses and apartments is dangerously polluted by a toxic mix of chemicals, airborne fibers, and biological invaders.
 
Sound bad? There is no running to the workplace to escape. Windows that won’t open, malfunctioning exhaust and ventilation systems, and the absence of circulating outdoor air allow contaminants from office equipment, building materials, furnishings, and cigarettes to build to unsafe levels. What office workers describe as “the bug that’s going around” may actually be the effects of these accumulated toxic substances.
 
The severity of indoor pollution comes into even sharper focus when concern about drinking water is considered. Thousands of substances used in industrial and agricultural processes, including gasoline, radioactive materials, chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals, and biological agents, can contaminate the lakes, rivers, streams, and aquifers that supply household water. Despite elaborate treatment and processing—and sometimes because of them—the safeguards in place in most communities are simply insufficient to guarantee pure drinking water.
 
Because indoor pollution is generally invisible to the eye and its effects on human health may not be apparent for many years, it is hard to assess the true hazards of contamination. But disquieting irritations, rashes, congestion, fatigue, some childhood respiratory diseases, and cancer have all been associated with toxic substances in our homes and workplaces. The Consumer Federation of America, a consumer protection group headquartered in Washington, D.C., calls indoor air pollution the nation’s number one hidden health threat.
 
Unfortunately, a sense of urgency has yet to surround the problem. In the 1970s, public and legislative attention began to be focused on the outdoor environment. But effective public policies to improve the indoor environment remain in their infancy. Heightening public awareness about indoor pollution and making the legislative and policy changes that will assure safe and decent housing and a workplace free of contamination have become imperative.
 
There are still no uniform standards to define safe concentration levels of specific contaminants in the home. No single federal agency has been charged with overseeing all of the government’s indoor air and water quality activities. And the public and private resources allocated to research and public education in the field have been clearly inadequate.
 
In the workplace, the standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other federal regulatory agencies are generally targeted at industrial plants, where chemicals are often used at very high concentrations. Although worker protection in such environments may be inadequate, at least some safeguards for limiting toxic exposure do exist. By contrast, exposure to the hazards of office buildings—from photocopiers and office supplies to newly installed carpeting and excess moisture—is virtually unregulated.
 
Solutions to the problems of indoor pollution do exist. Along with an in-depth look at the hazards of contaminated air and water, this book offers concrete, practical, and affordable ways of dealing with them. Making wise decisions when buying household furnishings or cleaning products, undertaking building renovations cautiously, installing simple pollution control devices, and keeping relative humidity levels low are just a few modest steps that have an enormous impact on human health and comfort.
 
Indoor Pollution also explores the political arena, arguing that homeowners and apartment dwellers, legislators and public policymakers, employees and employers, product manufacturers and commercial building operators all have roles to play in creating a healthy environment for living and working. A sample letter you can write to a legislator is included in the Appendix to aid you in taking an active role in combating the problems of indoor pollution.
 
WHAT CAUSES INDOOR POLLUTION?
 
The problems of indoor pollution are not new. In fact, the first known incident dates back to the days when human beings were still living in caves. Once these early people discovered the warmth of fire, soot became encrusted on the roof of primitive shelters—an indication that inadequate ventilation had allowed carbon monoxide and other gases to accumulate.
 
Some more recent examples:
 
A group of Oregon homemakers between the ages of sixteen and sixty-four were studied for fifteen years and found to be twice as likely to die of cancer as working women. The blame is being placed on chronic exposure to the carcinogens contained in many cleaning materials.
 
Dozens of children living on an Indian reservation along Maine’s majestic coastline are suffering from respiratory illnesses. The tightly sealed, energy-efficient homes built for their families by the federal government in the early 1970s are the likely source of the problem.
 
Carbon monoxide levels in the kitchens of some well-insulated homes are three times greater than the concentration in the car-crazy metropolis of Los Angeles.
 
Chemical sensitivities have forced a Harvard Law School student into a tent to avoid indoor pesticide poisoning, confined a Philadelphia woman to one room in her house, and incapacitated a Michigan man after he was exposed to vapors emitting from a waterproofing compound, according to anecdotes documented by the National Center for Environmental Health Strategies.
 
Ironically, serious workplace problems surfaced inside the central headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., where contamination made more than 100 people ill. Several EPA employees who were able to tolerate visits to outdoor hazardous waste sites felt sick after only fifteen minutes in the office.
 
Two recent developments explain most indoor pollution problems: the growing use of chemicals and synthetic materials and the push toward more tightly sealed homes and office buildings.
 
The Sources of Pollution
 
Ordinary living is a dirty business, at least as far as air quality is concerned. An average family of four vaporizes 4 to 10 gallons of water a day in the process of cooking, breathing, and sweating. In tightly insulated homes without adequate ventilation, humidity levels are sent soaring, encouraging the growth of molds and fungi and damaging a home’s windowsills, furnishings, and wooden structural elements. Human beings also exhale carbon dioxide, ammonia, acetone, ketone, hydrogen chloride, nitrogen dioxide, methane, and a host of other potentially toxic substances, as well as a variety of virulent microorganisms.
 
The problems created when this biologically derived air becomes trapped are intensified by the growing use of synthetics and chemicals in construction materials, home furnishings, plastics, cleaning products, aerosol sprays, and scores of other common household products. Particleboard cabinetry and some fabrics* emit formaldehyde, while volatile organic chemicals evaporate from common cleaning and personal care products, as well as from drinking and bathing water. At the same time, asbestos fibers hover unseen in the air. Even seemingly innocuous house dust can be unwholesome, since it contains dry flakes from skin and hair, mites, and the many hazardous substances found in cigarette smoke.
 
Nor do the problems end there. Conventional heating and cooking sources spew out poisonous gas, and a lengthy list of contaminants can seep in from outside. Radon is the best-known of these, but emissions from an upwind industrial plant or the neighbor’s wood stove, automobile exhaust from an attached garage, pesticides, biological agents, and dust particles laden with heavy metals from nearby roadways can also create health hazards. If you are unlucky enough to live near toxic wastes or the site of a chemical spill, poisonous vapors may add to this lethal brew.
 
Many everyday household products contribute more than one toxic substance to the air. Synthetic wall-to-wall carpeting is a good example. When first installed, it emits formaldehyde fumes and numerous other toxic chemicals, including ethyl benzene, toluene, xylene, and styrene. The glues used to secure the carpeting also emit toxics as they cure. Within a month or so, most of the offending chemicals have been released, but aging then introduces its own hazards. Carpet fibers become brittle as they weather, adding to airborne dust. And the difficulties of thoroughly cleaning wall-to-wall carpeting means that it can harbor nutrients and moisture that become home to literally millions of microorganisms.
 
Many of the same dangers exist in the workplace, where additional sources of toxics can be found, particularly faulty ventilation systems and common office equipment, including photocopiers. “We have come to realize that we find pollutants in every building; and that indoor air pollution varies considerably by season, by building age, by type of heating, by the appliances you find in a building, by ventilation, by the products in use, and by the personal habits of the occupants,” EPA Deputy Administrator A. James Barnes told a congressional subcommittee investigating the health hazards of indoor pollution.
 

Table of Contents

1	An Overview	3
	What Causes Indoor Pollution?	5
	What Are the Health Effects?	11
	Cigarette Smoking and Indoor Pollution	14
	Using This Book	15
Part I	At Home	19
2	The By-Products of an Industrial Age: Asbestos, Formaldehyde, and Volatile Organic Compounds	21
	Asbestos	21
	Formaldehyde	28
	Volatile Organic Compounds	35
3	The Perils of Nature: Radon and Biological Agents	47
	Radon	47
	Biological Agents	65
4	The Fire Within: Combustion Contaminants	75
	Carbon Monoxide	75
	Nitrogen Oxides	78
	Respirable Suspended Particulates	79
	Testing for Combustion By-Products	83
	Eliminating Combustion By-Products	85
5	A Proper Airing: The Science of Ventilation	89
	Natural Ventilation	89
	Mechanical Ventilation	94
	Air Purifiers	107
	The House of the Future	111
6	Not a Drop to Drink: Keeping Your Water Safe	114
	There's No Escaping the Hazards	114
	Surface Water and Its Contaminants	115
	Polluted Groundwater	120
	Contamination in the Treatment and Distribution Process	125
	The Contaminants	133
	Solutions: How to Clean Up Your Drinking Water	138
Part II	At Work	149
7	On the Job: Is Your Office Making You Sick?	151
	What Is a Sick Building?	154
	Ventilation Systems: A Tool for Good or Evil?	155
	Chemical Contamination	165
	Biological Contamination	169
	A Word About Asbestos	170
	Other Public Spaces	172
8	A New Way to Work: Steps Toward a Healthier Office	176
	Assessing the Problem	177
	Implementing Solutions	187
	Restricting Smoking at the Workplace	193
	Employer Liability: A Growing Pressure for Change	196
Part III	Public Policy	199
9	Private Lives, Public Responsibility: Forging Alliances for a Common Goal	201
	Recommendations: The Public Sector	204
	Recommendations: The Private Sector	213
	Good Public Policy: An Alternative to Litigation	218
	Appendix	221
	Federal Air and Water Legislation	221
	Organizations Involved with Indoor Pollution	225
	Sample Letter to a Legislator	239
	Testing Equipment and Laboratories	241
	Sources of Supply	246
	Glossary	253
	Bibliography	258
	Checklist to Finding Pollution Problems	268
	Index	273