Air Pollution in Our Homes
I have serious food allergies and celiac disease in addition to allergies&#x2F;sensitivities to ingredients of cleaning products. I have problems entering are staying in a lot of environments, pretty much anywhere that I don’t have control over the air or access to fresh air.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.