Wool can be made without killing animals. I think we need to go back to using bamboo, wood and wool and less synthetics. But most of all, make furniture and rugs that last -- so generation after generation can use them!
Even after an install, a project’s furnishings and finishes can leach harmful chemicals into the air for years through a process called off-gassing. Here’s how you can combat it.
by Audrey Gray
"'Okay, I want to tell you about some things,' she recalls telling her client, going on to carefully explain the dangers inherent in both flooring choices—primarily the health impacts of chemical inhalants. Not only would these #chemicals flood a home during the installation of new #carpet or #vinyl planks, but they would continue to gradually leach into the air for years to come—a more subtle (but dangerous) process referred to as off-gassing. Thompson didn’t want her client’s family exposed to a vapor stew of chemicals every day, least of all in the yoga space, where the whole point was to breathe deeply while near the floor.
"She offered her client some carefully sourced options such as an all-wool carpet with a natural #rubber pad, and advocated for solid, #sustainably sourced wood downstairs instead of a composite of plastics. 'I thought she’d be excited,' Thompson says. 'But because of her beliefs about animal rights, I learned that wool wasn’t acceptable to her…and there were price point issues too. I thought, ‘Wow, this is a whole new level I hadn’t encountered.’”
"Welcome to what materials experts call 'one of the most complicated issues in health and wellness,' the murky and unregulated (at least in the U.S.—Europe is much stricter) relationships humans have with thousands of airborne #toxins emanating from our building materials, #furnishings, #CleaningProducts, #CarInteriors, #iPads, and even #candles.
"'Nobody’s telling you what is coming from all those vapors mixing in the air,' says Jillian Pritchard Cooke, the founder of Wellness Within Your Walls, an education consultancy focused on dramatically reducing the dangers of off-gassing in the built environment. 'It’s up to us to understand the individual effects each chemical can have on your #NervousSystem, your #lungs, and your cellular makeup. We need to be doing right by our clients.'
"Designers have, of course, been aware of the dangers of volatile organic compounds (#VOCs) for a long time, and have helped influence some wins in the marketplace, like the rising popularity of low- or no-VOC paints and the 2015 ban Home Depot and Lowe’s instituted in 2015 on toxic #phthalates (a class of industrial chemicals that help make plastic bendy) in flooring.
"But the problem endures, and unfortunately, many of the worst effects of VOCs—showing up in health conditions—accumulate over long periods of time.
"One of the best arguments for incorporating #vintage pieces in design, apart from saving space in landfills and decreasing carbon emissions, is that they are far safer from an off-gassing perspective. #Recycling building materials (for instance, saving the doors during a retrofit) helps too."
"Plasticizers—the most common of which are called #phthalates—show up inside almost all of us, right along with other #chemicals found in #plastic, including #bisphenols such as #BPA. These have been linked to a long list of #health concerns, even at very low levels...
In our new tests, we checked a wider variety of foods to see how much of the chemicals Americans actually consume. The answer? Quite a lot."
"[Nanoplastics] are particles that are less than a micron in size.
Much of the plastic seems to be coming from the bottle itself and the reverse osmosis membrane filter used to keep out other contaminants."
Related:
"Consumer Reports has found that #plastics retain a "widespread" presence in #food despite the health risks, and called on regulators to reassess the safety of plastics that come into contact with food during production.
#Phthalates & #bisphenols can disrupt the production and regulation of estrogen and other hormones, potentially boosting the risk of birth defects, cancer, diabetes, infertility, neurodevelopmental disorders, obesity and other health problems."