Don't spend too much time in your shower - it might make you sick
The Center for Health, Environment & Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing environmental health harms caused by chemical threats, recently released a report stating that shower curtains made with PVC contain numerous harmful chemicals including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), phthalates (think CA toys), and organotins. These ubiquitous shower curtains are likely to have adverse effects on the nervous, respiratory and reproductive systems.
I don’t have enough hands to count the number of those shower curtains I’ve used in my brief 23 years, but it’s a lot. I’m happy to say I switched to cloth a few months ago after having a conversation about the possible effects of continued exposure to these shower curtains with my friend John Laumer of treehugger.com. I’m glad to see our fears were not confounded. The smell you most often associate with the excitement of a new product is actually a sign of off-gassing, a process by which harmful toxins become airborne through evaporation. There should be no rejoicing when this smell is encountered.
Some interesting findings from the study:
* 108 different volatile organic compounds were released from the shower curtain into the air over twenty-eight days.
* After one week, 40 different VOCs were detected in the air; after two weeks, 16 VOCS; after three weeks 11 VOCs and; after four weeks, 4 VOCs.
* The level of Total VOCs measured was over 16 times greater than the recommended guidelines for indoor air quality established by the U.S. Green Building Council, violating these guidelines for seven days.
* Just one new PVC shower curtain will release Total VOCs that exceed the typical Total VOCs residential level for four days.
* The concentration of Total VOCs in the Wal-Mart tested shower curtain was so high that the analytical equipment was saturated and further testing had to be halted so that lab equipment would not be damaged.
* All five curtains tested in phase one contained phthalates DEHP and DINP, chemicals banned in children’s toys in California, Washington, and the European Union.
* This testing did not replicate temperature and humidity conditions typically found in a shower, which would likely increase the concentrations of volatile pollutants released from a PVC curtain into the air of a bathroom; concentrations of these chemicals are likely to be even greater during and after a shower than those reported in this study.
The rest of the article.
I don’t have enough hands to count the number of those shower curtains I’ve used in my brief 23 years, but it’s a lot. I’m happy to say I switched to cloth a few months ago after having a conversation about the possible effects of continued exposure to these shower curtains with my friend John Laumer of treehugger.com. I’m glad to see our fears were not confounded. The smell you most often associate with the excitement of a new product is actually a sign of off-gassing, a process by which harmful toxins become airborne through evaporation. There should be no rejoicing when this smell is encountered.
Some interesting findings from the study:
* 108 different volatile organic compounds were released from the shower curtain into the air over twenty-eight days.
* After one week, 40 different VOCs were detected in the air; after two weeks, 16 VOCS; after three weeks 11 VOCs and; after four weeks, 4 VOCs.
* The level of Total VOCs measured was over 16 times greater than the recommended guidelines for indoor air quality established by the U.S. Green Building Council, violating these guidelines for seven days.
* Just one new PVC shower curtain will release Total VOCs that exceed the typical Total VOCs residential level for four days.
* The concentration of Total VOCs in the Wal-Mart tested shower curtain was so high that the analytical equipment was saturated and further testing had to be halted so that lab equipment would not be damaged.
* All five curtains tested in phase one contained phthalates DEHP and DINP, chemicals banned in children’s toys in California, Washington, and the European Union.
* This testing did not replicate temperature and humidity conditions typically found in a shower, which would likely increase the concentrations of volatile pollutants released from a PVC curtain into the air of a bathroom; concentrations of these chemicals are likely to be even greater during and after a shower than those reported in this study.
The rest of the article.