#Indoor Pollution

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

In recent years, gas stoves have been an unlikely front in the nation’s culture wars, occupying space at the center of a debate over public health, consumer protection and the commercial interests of manufacturers. Now, Norton is among the environmental advocates who wonder if a pair of recent developments around the public’s understanding of the harms of gas stoves might be the start of a broader shift to expand the use of electrical ranges.

On Monday, lawmakers in the California Assembly advanced a bill that would require any gas stoves sold in the state to bear a warning label indicating that stoves and ovens in use “can release nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and benzene inside homes at rates that lead to concentrations exceeding the standards of the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and the United States Environmental Protection Agency for outdoor air quality.” 

The label would also note that breathing those pollutants “can exacerbate preexisting respiratory illnesses and increase the risk of developing leukemia and asthma, especially in children. To help reduce the risk of breathing harmful gases, allow ventilation in the area and turn on a vent hood when gas-powered stoves and ranges are in use.”

The measure, which moved the state Senate, could be considered for passage later this year.

“Just running a stove for a few minutes with poor ventilation can lead to indoor concentrations of nitrogen dioxide that exceed the EPA’s air standard for outdoors,” Gail Pellerin, the California assembly member who introduced the bill, said in an interview Wednesday. “You’re sitting there in the house drinking a glass of wine, making dinner, and you’re just inhaling a toxic level of these gases. So, we need a label to make sure people are informed.”

Pellerin’s proposal moved forward in the legislature just days after a group of Stanford researchers announced the findings of a peer-reviewed study that builds on earlier examinations of the public health toll of exposure to nitrogen dioxide pollution from gas and propane stoves.

[wachinyeya]

Small Business to Sell “Superplants” to Remove 30x More Indoor Pollutants Than Normal Houseplants https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/small-business-to-sell-superplants-to-remove-30x-more-indoor-pollutants-than-normal-houseplants/

[geezerwench]

Utilities Have Been Lying to us About Gas Stoves Since the 1970s – Mother Jones

[aleeshagoodair]

Goodair car air purifier

Embark on an unforgettable journey with the GOODAIR Car Air Purifier – your premier guardian of in-car freshness! Embrace GOODAIR, the potent purifier that eradicates odors and harmful gases.

[reasonsforhope]

"A company in France has developed genetically-enhanced houseplants that remove 30 times more indoor air pollutants than your normal ficus.

Paint, treated wood, household cleaners, insulation, unseen mold—there is a shopping list of things that can fill the air you breathe in your home with VOCs or volatile organic compounds. These include formaldehyde and other airborne substances that can cause inflammation and irritation in the body.

The best way to tackle this little-discussed private health problem is by keeping good outdoor airflow into your living spaces, but in the dog days of summer or the depths of a Maine winter, that might not be possible.

Houseplants can remove these pollutants from the air, and so the company Neoplants decided to make simple alterations to these species’ genetic makeup to supercharge this cleaning ability.

In particular, houseplants’ natural ability to absorb pollutants like formaldehyde relies on them storing them as toxins to be excreted later.

French scientists and Neoplants’ co-founders Lionel Mora and Patrick Torbey engineered a houseplant to convert them instead to plant matter. They also took aim at the natural microbiome of houseplants to enhance their ability to absorb and process VOCs as well.

The company’s first offering—the Neo P1—is a Devil’s ivy plant that sits on a custom-designed tall stand that both maximizes its air-cleaning properties and allows it to be watered far less often.

Initial testing, conducted by the Ecole Mines-Telecom of Lille University, shows that if you do choose to shell out the $179 for the Neo P1, it’s as if you were buying 30 houseplants. Of course, if you went for the budget route of 30 houseplants, you’d have to water them all.

The founders pointed out in an interview done with Forbes last year that once they settled on the species and fixed the winning genetic phenotype, the next part of the process was just raising plants, the same activity done in every nursery and florist in every town in Europe."

Deliveries for the P1 are estimated for August 2024.

-via Good News Network, November 6, 2023

--

Note: I'm not a plant biologist, but if this works the way the company's white paper says it does, holy genetic engineering, Batman.

(Would love to hear thoughts from anyone who is a plant biologist or other relevant field!)

[jarvis-cockhead]

I need Americans to stop weighing in on the UKs indoor vs outdoor cat debate until they read up on our biodiversity crisis and learn exactly why our wildlife decline is so serious (spoiler: it's not the cats)

[silverfactory]

my indoor cat is wheezing this morning from all the wildfire smoke in nyc 😰

[mandelene]

It’s disgusting outside. There’s a dense yellow fog and it looks like someone put a sepia filter over the city. Breathing in today’s air probably took 5 years off of our lives lmao.

[reasoningdaily]

New York Post : Household cleaning products release hundreds of hazardous chemicals: study

A new study, published Tuesday in Chemosphere, found household cleaning products may release hundreds of hazardous compounds that could linger in the air for months, so it’s recommended to buy “green,” fragrance-free cleaners.

Scientists from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) analyzed 30 common cleaning products, testing conventional and “green” products with and without fragrances to determine if one type is safer.

The researchers sprayed the products inside a chamber and tested the air over four hours for the presence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

“Our findings emphasize a way to reduce exposure to hazardous VOCs — by selecting products that are ‘green,’ especially those that are ‘green’ and ‘fragrance free,’” EWG senior toxicologist Alexis Temkin said in a statement. Scientists from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) analyzed 30 common cleaning products, testing conventional and “green” products with and without fragrances to determine if one type is safer.Science Direct

The researchers detected 530 unique VOCs among the 30 products.

193 of them were determined to be hazardous.

Hazardous VOCs have the potential to lead to asthma, increased cancer risk and developmental and reproductive problems.

HDX glass cleaner, Scott’s liquid gold wood care and Lestoil heavy-duty multi-purpose cleaner were the worst when it comes to VOCs, per the study. HDX glass cleaner, Scott’s liquid gold wood care and Lestoil heavy-duty multi-purpose cleaner were found to contain the most toxic chemicals.amazon.com

Only one product — Dr. Bronner’s pure-castile soap, baby unscented — did not emit any VOCs.

“Green” products released just four chemicals classified as hazardous, on average, compared with about 15 in “green” products with fragrance and 22 for conventional products.

VOCs contaminate indoor air two to five times more than outdoor air, with some estimates putting it as high as 10 times more.

These toxic chemicals can linger in the air for months. Hazardous VOCs have the potential to cause asthma, increased cancer risk and developmental and reproductive problems.

Dr. David Andrews, a senior scientist at EWG, explained to Daily Mail: “There is no established safe exposure value or limit for VOCs nor are there specific health-based regulations for VOC emissions from cleaning products.”

“Some VOCs are much more hazardous than others, but which VOCs or VOC mixtures are causing the most harm hasn’t been established,” he continued.

Previous studies have found that these chemicals can cause significant harm when breathed in over a sustained period.

“This study is a wake-up call for consumers, researchers and regulators to be more aware of the potential risks associated with the numerous chemicals entering our indoor air,” Temkin said.

[world-of-wales]

I have been back home for a day and we have already had an earthquake 🙃

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

For decades, scientists have worked to clean up air pollution from factories, cars and power plants. But researchers are increasingly turning their attention to the air that people breathe indoors. And one appliance has come to the fore as a source of pollutants harmful to human health: the humble gas stove.

A new study from researchers at Stanford University sheds light on how much Americans may be exposed, indoors, to nitrogen dioxide, which comes from burning coal and gas and has been linked to asthma and other respiratory conditions.

The researchers found that, across the country, short-term nitrogen dioxide exposure from typical gas stove use frequently exceeded benchmarks set by both the World Health Organization and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In the longer term, using gas or propane stoves meant that the typical American could breathe in three-quarters of the nitrogen dioxide levels deemed safe by the W.H.O. within their own homes.

As with outdoor pollution, disadvantaged households may be more exposed, the researchers found. Because gas more easily spreads throughout smaller spaces, people in homes smaller than 800 square feet were exposed to four times more nitrogen dioxide in the long term than people in homes larger than 3,000 square feet, the study found. Black and Latino households were exposed to 20 percent more nitrogen dioxide compared with the national average.

Health experts say that the health risks posed by gas stoves are significant. “There really is no safe amount of exposure to these toxicants produced by gas or propane, or any fossil fuel, outside or inside,” said Kari Nadeau, chairwoman of the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The Stanford study estimated that long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide from stoves was likely causing up to 50,000 cases of asthma in children.

[climatecalling]

In the past week, many media outlets have labored to debunk this manufactured culture war: The federal government doesn’t, in fact, have any plans to ban gas stoves. Many cities and states are banning gas hookups in new construction—including New York state, whose announcement the same week inspired outrage from conservatives as well as from the restaurant sector—but no federal state or municipal authority is coming to seize those currently in use. That will never happen. ...

Whenever Republicans can turn a public health debate into a question about whether the government should interfere with the daily activities of wealthy, white homeowners, they do so. And many people fall for it. ...

If the affluent change their minds about gas stoves being the ultimate kitchen tool, Democrats have made it even easier for them to exercise their freedom to choose a different appliance: The Inflation Reduction Act offers homeowners who wish to switch from gas to electric stoves an $840 rebate.

Renters, however, don’t yet have a right to choose not to be poisoned by this dangerous product.

[friendraichu]

ha ha chicago is the most polluted major city in the world right now🙃😷

[allbeendonebefore]

looking outside these past couple days be like “is it cloudy or is it haze” and the haze is coming back : ) great. i had a bit of trouble breathing/fever after weeding in the garden for less than 20 minutes yesterday and the aqhi isn’t even that bad.

[tfw you spent all spring cautioning your friend in montreal not to visit during fire season and now you’re like Come Over, at least we have Less fire than you apparently]

[dragoncarrion]

you tell a bitch to keep their cat indoors and suddenly their town is the first in the world to have eradicated every viral, bacterial and parasitic disease, they invented completely harmless cars, dogs and predators dont exist either but somehow the native songbird population is fine since the cats in this place have lost the hunting instinct, there's no pollutants or toxic plants and human cruelty has ceased to exist. and mr mittens has a chip in his brain that will explode if he doesnt go outside 10 hours of the day