Home pollutant levels

Back in Pittsburgh s steel mill days, the city was infamous for both its high pollution levels and its public health problems. Nowadays, Pittsburgh has cleaned up its act and is becoming known as one of the safer US cities in which to live. It is also the proud home of the Andy Warhol Museum, a must-see for fans of Warhol s unique brand of pop art. 

Tobacco smoke contains a variety of air pollutants. In a survey of 80 homes ia an area where the outdoor TSP varied between 10—30 lg/m, the iadoor TSP was the same, or less, ia homes having ao smokers. la homes having oae smoker, the TSP levels were betweea 30—60 lg/m, while ia homes having two or more smokers, the levels were betweea 60—120 lg/m (64). la other studies, iadoor TSP levels exceeding 1000 lg/m have beea fouad ia homes with aumerous smokers. la additioa to TSP, burning tobacco emits CO, NO formaldehyde [50-00-0] bea2opyreaes, nicotine [54-11-5] pheaols, and some metals such as cadmium [7440-43-9] and arsenic [7440-38-2] (65). 

Good indoor air quality, critical for a healthy home, requires effective control of pollutants and moisture. To some extent this can be accomplished by thoughtfully selecting materials that contain low levels of volatile organic compounds and formaldehyde. In addition, hard surfaces that can be easily... 

It is an accepted practice when assessing the environmental effects of pollution on man and his place of abode to use a divisor of 40 (some agencies may divide by 30) against the long-term exposure level in the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA). Much lower exposure limits are necessary due to the much longer term of exposure in the domestic situation. The section of the population most likely to spend long periods of time in the home are those most susceptible to the detrimental effects of pollutants, i.e. the young, the elderly or the infirm. For short-term exposure the known data can be used directly from the list or from animal-exposure data. 

C02-0017. Recently, there has been concern about pollution in the home from radon, a radioactive gas whose elemental molar mass is 222 g/mol. The Environmental Protection Agency believes that a level of radon of 3.6 X 10" g / i of air is unhealthy. At this level, how many moles of radon would there be in a living room whose volume is 2455 L How many atoms is this ... 

Conceptualizations, once arrived at, interact to produce new conceptualizations, new technology, from which, once more, new concepts and new needs may emerge. Television, for instance, derives as a concept from motion pictures and radio and, even though it was introduced only a comparatively short time ago, has rapidly become a central part of homes at all levels of society in our culture. Watching television has tended to produce a more uniform culture through greater exposure to common stimuli, has reduced the amount of time available for free interaction by members of any particular household, and has resulted in the creation of such implements as "TV trays" and "TV dinners" to accommodate the need for more time around the television set. Automobiles have made possible the movement to the suburbs, the virtual end of public transportation in many parts of our country, and a resultant increased dependency on private means of transportation. In its turn, this has produced a more mobile population, a proliferation of roads, a tendency to think of distance in terms of units of time, the destruction of the countryside, and an increased need to deal with air pollution. 

But flame retardants, as with so many persistent organic pollutants, are like the flu exposure is everywhere, and hiding behind a healthy diet won t guarantee your safety. They are also a leveler of socioeconomic class. Californians, in many ways the healthiest Americans, appear to harbor the highest body burden of flame retardants. This is because the state has the highest fire safety standards and people s homes are oozing with the stuff. But California has affected—or infected—us all as state standards become the norm for... 

Episodes that lead to acute, non-lethal events are many and varied. They range from accidents in the home with household products to consumption of plant and animal toxins from industrial and transportation accidents to skin contact with certain plants such as poison ivy from consumption of too much alcohol to inhaling of certain air pollutants, both outdoors and indoors, that have for some reason accumulated to unusually high levels. 

Using biomass as a fuel is often coupled with inefficient ventilation thus, extremely high levels of indoor air pollutants are produced. The outcome is that people - mainly women and children in rural areas and urban slums who spend most time in their homes - are exposed to high levels of indoor air pollution. It is estimated that nearly 2 million women and children die every year in developing countries as a result. About half of these deaths occur in India and China [11]. 

Unsaturated aliphatic and cyclic hydrocarbons have numerous biological sources. Ethylene, H2C = CH2, the simplest of the series, is emitted by green plants in substantial quantities. It has hormonal activity and has been implicated in the control of many physiological processes in plants. The natural tropospheric concentration of ethylene is very low due to its high reactivity with ozone, -OH, and other atmospheric oxidants (Robinson and Robbins, 1968), but in polluted atmospheres its concentrations can be much higher. It is a product of combustion of wood, coal, oil, natural gas, and petroleum. Elevated levels of ethylene, such as may occur in homes where coal gas is used for cooking, can be very deleterious to plants. 

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