/ 19 September 2016

Toxic household dust – something else to panic about

Toxic Dust

Household dust. It’s the stuff you see floating along when a ray of sunlight slips around a curtain and shines a light on the inner workings of your household air. It’s everywhere, and the reason weekends are spent cleaning, instead of lying in a shocked heap after barely surviving the work week.

In times soon to be long gone, this dust was sucked up and brushed away because it made you sneeze. Or, because guests gave slightly nervous looks when presented with a glass of wine which required a delicate wipe to remove all the dust.

But now there are legitimate worries to be had about the dust, according to researchers in the United States. That land of pathological fear of dirt – where the endless search is about turning that spray that kills 99.9% of germs into a kill-all application – has gone and linked household dust to a nice mix of toxic chemicals.

The research – Consumer product chemicals in indoor dust: a quantitative meta-analysis of US studies” – was published in the Environmental Science & Technology journal.

Its team collated 26 peer-reviewed papers that were published since 1999, all looking at the chemicals that mix together in dust. These found 45 toxic chemicals in the dust that freely wanders around homes.

These chemicals can be linked to an increased risk of all sorts of health hazards, from fertility issues to increased risk of cancer.

Problematically, all these chemicals come from the things everyone has in their homes – 10 of them were found in 90% of all dust samples.

The worst of these were phthalates, which are used to make cosmetics, toys, vinyl flooring and all sorts of other consumer goods, and phenols, which are used in cleaning products and other everyday household items.

On their own, each of these comes in small enough doses that they aren’t harmful. But when mixed together in a dusty cocktail they are mighty. And bad. Especially for children, who spend their days crawling about, eating anything that falls on the floor and sticking their paws in their mouths.

“We think of our homes as a safe haven but unfortunately they are being polluted by toxic chemicals from all our products,” says co-author Veena Singla.

All. Our. Products. So get cleaning … but steer clear of the long list of bad stuff.