Toxic chemicals common to home furnishings and electronic equipment have been found in household dust, including chemicals internationally recognized as harmful or toxic to the immune and reproductive systems; babies and young children are particularly at risk from exposure. That is the finding of a 2005 report, Sick of Dust: Chemicals in Common Products, which investigated six classes of chemicals in dust samples taken from 70 homes in seven states across the U.S. Among the chemicals documented in household dust are two — phthalate plasticizers and organotin stabilizers — that are ubiquitous in PVC vinyl building materials.

Many factors contribute to the development and aggravation of asthma. However, I am wondering whether the installation of PVC flooring in my bathroom and kitchen contributed to the worsening of my breathing.

The floor was laid three years ago. A slow leak under my sink went unnoticed until the downstairs’ neighbor’s ceiling fell. About this time, my life-long respiratory ailments worsened.

Scientists are investigating the relationship between moisture, PVC flooring, and asthma.

In Sweden, a study of 10,851 children found the presence of both floor moisture and PVC significantly increased the risk of asthma.[1] The incidences were higher in multiple family dwellings where a higher percentage of PVC flooring was found.

Many workers in an office building in Finland, over a short period of time, were diagnosed with adult-onset asthma at a rate of about 16 times higher than expected.[2] An investigation uncovered in the office air space high levels of volatile chemicals, such as 2-ethyl-l-hexanol, l-butanol, which are degradation by-products of vinyl. The problem was traced back to damp concrete surfaces below the PVC flooring.

The PVC flooring was removed and surface of the concrete slab warmed up enough to remove the volatiles that had been diffused within. In rooms cleaned up in this manner and floors replaced with ceramic tile, the emissions of the three main volatiles (2-ethyl-l-hexanol, l-butanol, and 3-heptanone) decreased, as did employees’ symptoms and many asthma patients’ needs for medication.

To make it less brittle, PVC is coated with plasticizers called phthalates. These chemicals evaporate and enter the air space where they adhere to dust particles.[3] New research shows that dust from homes containing PVC floors has higher levels of phthalates – particularly di(2-ethylhexyl) (DEHP) – than dust from homes without vinyl floors. One recent case-control study found an association between dust concentrations of phthalates inside homes and asthma, rhinitis and eczema.[4] The presence of PVC flooring in the child’s bedroom was the strongest predictor of respiratory ailments.

Other studies reach similar conclusions,[5] with one recommending “avoidance of PVC flooring in homes with small children” as a simple first step.[6]

Avoiding PVC flooring isn’t difficult, but it’s often disregarded as a cost-cutting measure.

Meanwhile, the costs associated with the increase in rates of asthma keep adding up. According to officials in my home state of Massachusetts, asthma is the number one preventable cost to hospitals.[7]

Prescription costs, doctors’ fees, lost wages due to time off from work for parents of asthmatic children, and the un-quantifiable cost of school absenteeism add up to a hefty burden for families and society.

Alternatives to PVC that are easier on the lungs exist today.

By switching to safer products we could be offering a child the priceless gift of easy breathing.
Guest columnist Niaz Dorry is a veteran activist and writer living in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She works with small-scale, traditional, and indigenous fishing communities in the U.S. and from around the globe to advance the rights and ecological benefits of the small-scale fishing communities as a means of protecting global protect marine biodiversity. In 1998, Time Magazine named Niaz as a Hero For The Planet for this work. Her fisheries articles appear regularly in a range of publications.

Chlorine gas kills and maims in a manner so heinous that it was banned as a chemical weapon after the battlefield experiences of World War I. Today, according to the Washington Post, anti-terrorist experts say there is “little doubt that plants storing large amounts of chlorine and other toxic chemicals are potential terrorist targets.” These chemicals are even more vulnerable while in transit, as the Wall Street Journal proved by following graffiti artists as they “tagged” chlorine tank cars within site of the US Capitol building, long after 9-11.

One morning ten years ago, I was at work on a book about environmental health when the phone rang. It was my Uncle Roy. He wanted me to know that a developer had come to town peddling a plan to construct a giant waste incinerator in the cornfield next to his own. What the man was planning to burn in it, he said, was old auto interiors, including a lot of PVC plastic. If the people of the township went along, the company would build the school a new library.

Now how did they know we needed a library, my uncle wondered. And what did I know about a chemical called dioxin? Funny he should ask. I was just drafting that chapter.

So I took leave of the Harvard Medical School Library and went back home to library-less central Illinois to throw my hat in the ring with my mother’s brother and a group of other farmers who had vowed to fight the incinerator.

And we won. Not only did Forrest, Illinois vote down the incinerator plan, it was defeated in six other small, impoverished farming communities where the same developer had dangled it. People looked out at their turkeys, hogs, and fields of corn and imagined what could happen if one semi-truck full of dioxin-laden incinerator ash overturned on a windy day. It just wasn’t worth the risk, they decided.

A decade later, central Illinoisians are confronted with a similar choice. This time it involves the manufacture of PVC rather than its destruction.