=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #49
—November 2, 1987—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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CALIFORNIA REPORT DESCRIBES THE PROBLEM OF INDOOR AIR POLLUTION, GIVES NEW
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Indoor air pollution is a much more serious problem than outdoor air pollution. Even when indoor pollution
levels are lower than outdoor levels, exposures can be significant because people spend so much time
indoors; average Americans spend more than 90% of their time indoors.
Indoor pollution levels usually exceed outdoor levels because building materials and consumer products
exude chemicals into the air, and because air gets trapped inside buildings. The average American home
now uses 45 different products packaged as aerosol sprays. Increasingly, people cook their food and heat
their homes with unvented stoves and kerosene heaters. Carpeting, wallboard, paint, and spackling
compounds all give off toxic fumes.
Showering, bathing, washing dishes, washing clothes, and flushing toilets can release water pollutants into
the air indoors. Air exposure from water-borne chemicals is much greater than from drinking contaminated
water. Your lungs are designed to transfer chemicals efficiently between the air and your blood stream.
Because of the complex structure of the inner surface of the lungs, they present a very large surface to the
atmosphere (an area as large as two tennis courts).
Indoor levels of formaldehyde, radon, asbestos, mercury, and a variety of organic chemicals have been
measured in homes at levels exceeding federal standards.
Solutions to these problems require less use of toxics in home products and other changes.
People wanting more information on these subjects should write Dr. Stanley V. Dawson, Research Division,
California Air Resources Board, P.O. Box 2815, Sacramento, CA 95812 requesting a copy of INDOOR AIR
QUALITY AND PERSONAL EXPOSURE, BRIEFING PAPER dated May, 1987. In addition to an intelligent
overview of the problem, this free 70-page report contains an 8-page bibliography for further reading.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: indoor air pollution; ca; formaldehyde; radon; asbestos; mercury; organic chemicals;
carb;