Get The Facts - Indoor Air Quality & Toxic Building Materials

Exposure to toxic chemicals at home can cause immediate acute health harm (like a rash) or long term chronic damage (like cancer). Exposures are either through the mouth (ingestion), lungs (inhalation), skin (absorption), or umbilical cord (intravenous). If the exposure is oral, it is typically from food, water, or the ingestion of contaminated dust (think of a baby crawling on the floor). If the exposure is through our skin, we get exposed through personal and body care products and even antimicrobials—yes, many hand-sanitizers used during the pandemic contain chemicals associated with hormone disruption and antibiotic resistance. But increasingly our skin exposures comes from finish materials around our homes like paints, countertops, plumbing fixtures, and door handles that have added antimicrobials or other chemicals to their post COVID products/ formulations. The stark reality is that our homes are increasingly ‘plastic.’ And with the use of these synthetic materials and fossil fuels, there comes a necessary and concomitant use of chemical additives like plasticizers and stabilizers that are either (1) linked to chronic disease or (2) bioaccumulate in people and animals (e.g., a 2016 banned antimicrobial named Triclosan still shows up in nearly all breast milk samples tested today). The building materials of greatest toxic concern besides the antimicrobials already mentioned include many flame retardants (added to building insulations, furniture foam, and electronics); PFAS (also known as “forever chemicals”) found in products like carpeting and adhesives and sealants and known to migrate into dust and air; Bisphenols & Phthalates added to vinyl flooring, epoxy adhesives, and even teething toys used primarily to make plastics stronger and more flexible; some solvents (especially trichloroethylene) used to dissolve or disperse substances like wood finishes and oil based paints and often end up in the air we breathe or groundwater we drink; and certain heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, mercury or lead that are potent neurotoxins and almost always found in older paints as well as older weatherized wood products used to construct outdoor wood decks. Bottom line? When it comes to healthy building, product info is rarely robust, some products are indeed quite toxic even if their use is not yet banned or regulated, and those products that