Air Pollution in Our Homes
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
In NASA research[1], common house plants were found to remove toxic agents such as benzene and formaldehyde from the air.
Some of the best air purifying plants: Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant), Dracaena reflexa (song of India), Nephrolepis exaltata (Boston fern), Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant), and Chamaedorea seifrizii (bamboo palm).
That’s the whole problem with all this “health science.” It’s completely disconnected from expected outcomes that you can use to determine whether this is something even worth caring about.
EDIT re: sibling comment debunking impact of indoor plants. See, this is exactly what I mean. When you don’t tie observed correlations to concrete outcomes, all you do is confuse people. It’s not quite junk science, but it’s not helpful reporting of the science.
Recently, Waring and his colleagues reanalyzed all 195 studies that have examined whether houseplants can filter the air. They found that some types of plants can remove higher amounts of VOCs than others. But once you factor in the effects of working in a large room, none of the plants are able to do much.
Waring told me to imagine a small office, 10 feet by 10 feet by eight feet. “You would have to put 1,000 plants in that office to have the same air-cleaning capacity of just changing over the air once per hour, which is the typical air-exchange rate in an office ventilation system,” he said. That’s 10 plants per square foot of floor space. Even if you chose the most effective type of VOC-filtering plant, you would still need one plant per square foot, Waring said.
Carpets have become very popular. But cheap ones release tons of VOCs due to fire retardants and anti-stain treatments.
I've switched to a house built in the Scandinavian style, with oiled wooden floors and simple soap-treated furniture. Not only beautiful, but also lacks the typical brand new smell. Theoretically much better in terms of nasty VOCs.
Studies are lacking, so I prefer to err on the safe side. Especially since buying natural furniture that releases less VOCs is not limiting. In fact, it will last longer as materials are of higher quality.
IKEA has a whole range of raw solid pine furniture (without stain) that is incredibly cheap. E.g. an Ingo dining table costs ~$50. Last time I checked, it was manufactured in Poland, and it's pretty awesome quality for the price.
i'm not sure how well they filter the air, but it's nice to have green, living things around that are hard to kill. =)
>but was conducted under sealed space station conditions and research conducted since has shown mixed results in the home or office
I love houseplants, decorating an indoor space with them provides me a huge psychological boost. But it's not doing anything physically.
If not is there a market opportunity to create such a product, maybe integrated into home HVAC systems that can sample circulating air with a mobile app dashboard for monitoring levels?
I've always worried that everything in my house is off-gassing and slowly affecting my health and lifespan negatively.
Current devices are all very expensive because they're lab equipment, but there is no theoretical reason for the expense. I'm sure you could design a $1 device with a servo, photodiode and spark gap.
The biggest shocker is when you disturb loft insulation. They claim it's not terrible (specifically if undisturbed), but floating glass strands can't be all that nice.
Acrylic fibers are 15 µm to 25 µm. Merino wool fibers are 15 µm to 30 µm. And human hairs diameters are between 20 to 200 µm.
Seems to be a biological limit to the body cleaning system e.g. nanoparticles, abestos
In the case of your lungs they get delivered to the great acid bath that is your stomach.
You can see that while there are a lot of things to consider, PM2.5 is by far the most dangerous. Surprisingly to me, mold is actually the next most dangerous, implying that indoor humidity control is also very important.
* frying indoors generally swiftly puts things in the unsafe range. Especially if it led to browning.
* a neighbour's bbq would do the same if the window was open
* idling truck on the street for construction? Unsafe range
* surprisingly, the toaster would raise levels if it was on high enough to brown toast
Really helped me make better decisions about when to open/shut windows and how to cook.
I got the laseregg after reading reviews of air quality monitors used in china. Apparently it holds up well to specialized lab sensors. It has a battery and can be moved around
My co2 sensors have no connection either: https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-Autopilot-Desktop-Monitor-L...
Or for ice cream sales -- next to a children's play area.
Equally if my so-called 100% natural mattress is giving of fumes, I'd like to know about it! Because I'm certain the living room furniture is doing so.
I used https://acsbadge.com/ to do a highly-accurate one time test of my home and was happy with the results. Piece of mind to determine if you have a potential issue or not. They also give guidance on how to interpret the numbers and what 'safe' means (results are in ppm concentration accurate to 0.002 ppm).
I've ordered an awair, I think it does vocs but not sure it does them in any specificity.
And I think the only real solution is venting. Open a window. Other than identifying the source and removing it of course. But in many places I think it's wall materials, furniture, etc
Dhh had a talk on indoor air quality you may find useful.
I tested my home using a badge from this company: https://acsbadge.com/ They are not cheap ($60 for one test), but it's accurate to 2 ppb and will give you an idea what your chronic home exposure is and if changes are needed.
https://www.amazon.com/Air-Pollution-Formaldehyde-Detector-T...
Typically it's around 300CFM before you should consider a mechanical make-up air device (gravity activated or a makeup air fan tied to the hood activating).
Just for reference, NIOSH recommends 0.016 ppm as the max exposure limit for a workday. CARB recommends a max safe level of 0.05 ppm. WHO recommends max level of 0.08 ppm for 30 minutes, etc.
0.3 ppm is extremely high for chronic exposure.
After these words I'm seriously starting to doubt the correctness of the device. I can't believe I wasn't able to find any indoor location with a low enough concentration for below 0.1 ppm, or only outdoors. I mean, these are rooms where I, my colleagues, friends and family are non-stop, we should all be good as one by now with those concentrations.
1 ppm in air = 1.24 mg/m3 @ 25° C
If you're measuring 0.1 on the meter, that's about 0.08ppm (still pretty high).
However, I've read the reviews and dug a bit deeper, talked to some people. Basically, that value might be elevated by some unknown amount, but the device should not be trusted for the absolute levels.
i may buy a foobot[1] one day, as it was highly rated in recent studies on pm measurements, and has an api.
[0] https://www.airthings.com/wave-plus [1] https://foobot.io/
Airthings looks interesting. I'm curious to know of any reviews of their accuracy.
i'm a little less concerned about accurate co2 levels, since mitigation is straightforward (open a window). even imperfect co2 readings are good enough to signal when to open a window (around 800-1000 ppm, or ~2x ambient co2 levels).
voc's and particulate matter are more my nemesis, as my lungs are more sensitive to that stuff. beyond knowing generally how bad the air is, i'd like to be able to figure out what is causing the bad air and how to mitigate it. information there seems lacking right now.
i'd trust the radon sensor in the airthings more than the voc/co2 sensor, since radon is what they're known for. the voc/co2 sensor is probably the cheaper type used in most consumer air quality monitors, so it's good directionally but is not strictly accurate/precise.
and this is the study that foobot themselves reference: https://cdn-foobot.pressidium.com/wp-content/themes/foobot/a...
The results on the toaster are not surprising. I’ve worried about toast smoke in coffee shops before because small amounts of gluten or allergens can make me sick.
It’s great that they are measuring concentrations of chemicals in the air related to cleaners. Something like someone spraying air freshener or mopping the floor with Pinesol makes me feel ill, and continued exposure will make me sneeze and my eyes turn red and so forth.
It’s amazing how casual people are about this. I sat down at the bar the other day and immediately the bartender started spraying Windex all over and wiping a wall. I had to rinse out my nose, and gained a headache. It definitely ruined the experience for me, but most people don’t think twice.
The possibility is raised that “The dominant source of VOCs in Los Angeles is now emissions from consumer products, including toiletries and cleaning fluids.“ Again, not a surprise. A statistic that quote to people is that about 5% of VOC emissions in the United States come from dryer vents, from mostly unnecessary chemicals in detergent and dryer sheets. Almost every single chemical product that is packaged for consumers and sold in plastic bottles at stores makes me very, very sick. Conditioners, shampoo, clothing detergent, pesticides, air freshener, candles soaps, fabric softener, floor cleaners, dish soap, glass cleaner. The annoying thing is that while the base formulation of these is bad enough, the part that is the worst for me is the completely unnecessary fragrances.
Only if you think of it that way really, considering a) the majority of people don't have problems and b) long-term effects of those products are sometimes not known at all, let alone known by the general public. Don't forget things like allergy information for food etc are fairly recent developments even in the western world. And studies showing/hinting at links between cleaning produtcs and premature deaths etc are also fairly recent I think, so unfortunately the general population isn't really aware of the dangers.
What I’m really objecting to is the needless chemicals and fragrances. There is growing awareness that fragrances bother some people. There’s a growing trend of fragrance free workplaces, for instance the entire state government of Oregon.
City of Portland: “Fragrance Free Workplace Employees who are sensitive to perfumes and chemicals may suffer potentially serious health consequences, triggered by exposure to scented products. Consequently, employees are asked to refrain from the use of personal scented products in the workplace where the sole purpose is to produce a scent, such as perfume, after shave, and cologne and to avoid the use of strongly scented personal hygiene products such as laundry soap, dryer sheets hand lotion, powder, hair spray, and deodorant. All City managers and supervisors are expected to enforce this rule. An employee who is experiencing health consequences due to another employee’s use of scented products should report the problem to their supervisor to ensure appropriate action is taken.”
We can divide fragrance problems into allergies, sensitivities, and the mere fact that fragrance is distracting. In the bar example, I’m there to consume an expensive spirit that supposedly has a price based upon the flavor. Spraying a bunch of chemical cleaner in the air with a distracting fragrance right when I’m about to consume in my drink is a poor choice in that regard. You also see this in cannabis stores – some of them burn incense. When they are charging sometimes three times as much for certain products, mostly based on the aroma and flavor, why would the store be filled with fragrances that coat everything, dominate the air, and even soak into the product? If you were attending a winetasting, and there’s a heavy air freshener scent or somebody there is wearing an extremely strong cologne, it distracts from the entire purpose of the event, which is tasting wine, not perfume. It’s like shining a light and someone dies when they’re trying to read.
I woman I dated for years used to have problems with her mother blasting the bathroom with some sort of Clorox cleaner. She would complain of headaches and watery eyes. Her mother paid absolutely no attention, as if her headaches and watery eyes were somehow less important then sanitizing the bathroom floor. I don’t understand that attitude. Now that more testing has been done on cleaners like that, it’s not that question at that concentration of toxic chemicals in the air exceeds safety levels in such a situation. It baffles me that common sense doesn’t tell people this, too. Reading the label would help. The concept claimed by manufactures that people use things like raid and roundup in accordance with labeling is ludicrous.
As far as premature death, there is a long way to go from healthy to dead. The spectrum in between is a wide range of discomfort and illness. Studies have long showed a correlation between use of indoor cleaners and fragrances and respiratory problems such as asthma. Also, the trend of natural and non-toxic cleaners has been on the rise for years. So, there should be some awareness in the average person that certain consumer products pose a hazard if not for everyone for some people.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5773620/
But yes, the general population is definitely not aware of the dangers. I would say that’s for many reasons. Certainly manufactures are not seeking to spread information they would expose them to liability or make them change their formulation. Instead they do things like cover up severely toxic contaminants in their products and lobby against labeling. And then, given the propensity of society to engage in activities that everyone knows can be harmful such cigarette smoking, alcohol, speeding, eating fried foods, fast food and so forth, it’s clear that most people don’t heed warnings of well-known dangers. Cigarette smoking causes all sorts of illness, impairment and discomfort before death, but to hear people talk, the only risk is death. Social pressure and marketing are stronger.
Noncancer effects are gauged in terms of multiples of the lowest observed effect level or the no observed effect level. If across a spectrum of exposures, we observed no effect at a certain level, that would be our NOEL. Of course, the observed effect could be a runny nose. 100x the NOEL could still be a runny nose (it could, in fact, be no adverse effect at all), but people see 100x the benchmark level and freak out.
In my mind, we really need to reshape this discussion around toxics. People are willing to suffer great costs to avoid hazards that do not, in fact, present material risks.
[1] https://www.cars.com/articles/are-the-odds-ever-in-your-favo...
There are ~30k automobile deaths in the US per year. Your figure is off by several orders of magnitude.
10.7 per 100k == 1.07 per 10k == 107 per 1000k (1m)
I've also come to the conclusion that a vented range hood is really an essential for indoor cooking of any kind. It should definitely be the #1 priority for any home to improve air quality.
The worst day for me during the past few years' Seattle-area smoke events didn't register as a bad day on the official air quality reports because the particles were too big. But it was the only time where I actually had to stop and take a taxi 7 blocks because I just started coughing uncontrollably and couldn't carry my groceries home.
There are two cafes in SF I used to frequent who do their cooking in the same main space as guests, do not have much if any ventilation, and, if I was there hacking on my laptop around lunch time, I would always get headaches and need to leave. (one is a trendy workspace cafe, that I feel bad naming). It has not happened at other SF cafes despite a lot of working-in-cafes. I also used to have a roommate who didn't like the sound of our ventilation fan and wouldn't open the kitchen back door (to the outdoors) because of the cool air. Anytime she cooked with the oven I would get a headache and need to leave the apartment, while having no problem with the third roommate's cooking who preferred to ventilate.
It's portable and has a battery. Quite eye opening to test it in various scenarios.
> CTRL+F "smoking"
> 0 results
The dominant source of air pollution for almost all of human history has been smoke of one sort or another (see: historical dramas that show indoor light/heating with candles and fireplaces, https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/), to the extent that I personally doubt banning secondhand smoke indoors would have made much difference to non-smokers' health before open wood fires and coal fires were phased out.
I suppose it's a notable achievement of our society that both industrial pollution and domestic smoke has been reduced so much that VOCs from other sources indoors are our greatest worry.
worrying about second hand smoke (unless you're literally trapped in a room like a bar, etc.) is almost laughable.
But as far as I can tell, nicotine doesn't cause lung cancer. That's from the smoke itself - any smoke.
Additionally, it seems that many Americans also really hate opening their windows (and indeed the climate often doesn't really lend itself to opening the windows, in some places ever). I grew up in a drafty old house with no A/C, and even as a kid felt other people's–newer, not drafty, air conditioned–homes had an airless feeling.
It's been interesting to follow the recent studies on indoor CO2 and other air pollution...I don't feel quite so crazy for wanting to open the windows all the time when visiting family.
All this talk of CO2 recently has made me value that my house is drafty.
I believe growing up in a dusty environment contributed to my asthma...
Those people would not be able to get the job if it was paid
And like the link below says...it's the biggest appliance company I've never heard of. I have the one pictured on the left.
https://www.treehugger.com/kitchen-design/chinese-manufactur...
I'm tempted to get a proper range hood just because this infuriates me so much, but the cost of redoing the whole cabinet above the stove is steep.
Needed to do minor custom wood work to mount and make it look nice, but it's doable. My dad was a carpenter so it was easy to get done.
Instead of fabric softener, use white vinegar as a liquid fabric softener in your washer. It will make your clothes smell fresh - not vinegary.
That scent that comes off of clothes that are treated with scented detergents and softeners is air pollution.
your sentiment reminds me of the surgeon mentality before germs were discovered. "ive been operating on people for years and saving their lives -- no way could i be giving them an illness just through my hands!", and yet that turned out to be true.
the low hanging fruit are gone but there is a lot left to explain in terms of health. for example millions of people die from many kinds of cancers every year for which we have no idea why.
I think the big take away is that you should pretty much always turn on the exhaust hood over your stove top when you cook. Doing so removes many of the particles generated by cooking.
* The Fireplace Delusion
The fact that we’ve been doing this a long time means the effect couldn’t be all that large, or else we would’ve noticed something (e.g. a stark difference between those who cook at home and those who eat out).
Ban salt, fat, (but not sugar, just tax it even more), flavour and smells! The hysteria over how to eat and what to eat has killed potentially hundreds of millions of people at this point. Sensationalism motivates culture and is absolutely to be feared.
Of course we shouldn't live in sealed up caves with no vents. We shouldn't live in moldy apartments either. Tell us something we don't know.
But yeah, cooking, cleaning, air fresheners... all of them negatively affect my home air quality. Just need to ventilate at the right times. After the DHH video about this topic, I pulled the trigger and got the monitor, which fortunately also tracks CO2 and chemical (VOCs).
I'm glad to see 2 topics about air quality trending today. I had to finally register to get in on the one topic I actually know about.