Each car in London costs us £8,000

hawkinspeter wrote:

don simon wrote:

Fair enough, there's no danger there then, as you were.

I'm not sure that there's no danger; high levels are associated with "sick building syndrome" and "building related illness".

.https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/volatile-organic-compounds-impact-indoor-air-quality

Thanks for the link, but I'm aware of that, which is why I work in an area that goes someway forward in offering a solution and improving IAQ while reducing energy consumption.

The point being that we're happy to pick on the headline bad boys, often from a perceived position of superiority ("I don't own a dirty diesel") while all along we are all guilty of killing the planet to some degree or other. Some just don't make the headlines, or are fashionable enough, or indeed, distanced from me enough.

hawkinspeter wrote:

don simon wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

don simon wrote:

Fair enough, there's no danger there then, as you were.

I'm not sure that there's no danger; high levels are associated with "sick building syndrome" and "building related illness".

.https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/volatile-organic-compounds-impact-indoor-air-quality

Thanks for the link, but I'm aware of that, which is why I work in an area that goes someway forward in offering a solution and improving IAQ while reducing energy consumption.

The point being that we're happy to pick on the headline bad boys, often from a perceived position of superiority ("I don't own a dirty diesel") while all along we are all guilty of killing the planet to some degree or other. Some just don't make the headlines, or are fashionable enough, or indeed, distanced from me enough.

I get your point and I do agree that as a society we do cherry pick which things are the current badboy of the month.

With VOCs, they seem to be extremely variable/localised e.g. freshly painted houses will be incredibly high for a period of time. Presumably, this makes it more difficult to get a sensible figure for our typical exposure to them. With general air pollution, we can easily set up static monitoring, but that's not going to be relevant with VOCs as most of them will be inside buildings.

I'd imagine that reducing exposure to VOCs could be achieved by leaving buildings to "breathe" after being painted etc. whereas there doesn't seem to be an easy way to limit exposure to traffic fumes apart from moving away from population centres.

 

How long should we allow buildings to "breathe" (wonders whether there's a company naming opportunity in there...)?

And how much time do we spend indoors?

Let's not forget that it's not just paint, or a shortish term problem after painting, laying new carpet, gluing new flooring, etc. There's a whole week to week air freshener, polishing, domestic cleanering thing to contend with.

It is a huge problem for both health and the environment.

I am somewhat biased and will let the focus stay on dirty diesels.

don simon wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

don simon wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

don simon wrote:

Fair enough, there's no danger there then, as you were.

I'm not sure that there's no danger; high levels are associated with "sick building syndrome" and "building related illness".

.https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/volatile-organic-compounds-impact-indoor-air-quality

Thanks for the link, but I'm aware of that, which is why I work in an area that goes someway forward in offering a solution and improving IAQ while reducing energy consumption.

The point being that we're happy to pick on the headline bad boys, often from a perceived position of superiority ("I don't own a dirty diesel") while all along we are all guilty of killing the planet to some degree or other. Some just don't make the headlines, or are fashionable enough, or indeed, distanced from me enough.

I get your point and I do agree that as a society we do cherry pick which things are the current badboy of the month.

With VOCs, they seem to be extremely variable/localised e.g. freshly painted houses will be incredibly high for a period of time. Presumably, this makes it more difficult to get a sensible figure for our typical exposure to them. With general air pollution, we can easily set up static monitoring, but that's not going to be relevant with VOCs as most of them will be inside buildings.

I'd imagine that reducing exposure to VOCs could be achieved by leaving buildings to "breathe" after being painted etc. whereas there doesn't seem to be an easy way to limit exposure to traffic fumes apart from moving away from population centres.

 

How long should we allow buildings to "breathe" (wonders whether there's a company naming opportunity in there...)?

And how much time do we spend indoors?

Let's not forget that it's not just paint, or a shortish term problem after painting, laying new carpet, gluing new flooring, etc. There's a whole week to week air freshener, polishing, domestic cleanering thing to contend with.

It is a huge problem for both health and the environment.

I am somewhat biased and will let the focus stay on dirty diesels.

I like your point. I think of those little automatic "airfresheners" as cancer cabinets. I have very little doubt that they're doing our personal health as little benefit as they are that of the environment.