Making Dust Safer

Recall that some months ago, I said that there isn’t a comprehensive program for helping people reduce their personal exposure to persistent organic pollutants or POPs. In the meantime, I’ve run into some useful resources that may represent part of an answer. From Environmental Health News, I found the “Sick of Dust” report, an indoor exposure study sponsored by the Safer Products Project, a collaboration of several state environmental groups. House dust samples vacuumed up from several residences across the U.S. were composited and analyzed for brominated diphenyl ethers, indoor-use pesticides, phthalates, substituted phenolic compounds, fluorinated organic compounds and organotins. These compounds are released in small quantities from ordinary consumer products to become incorporated into ordinary house dust.

The exposure study was interesting (others are also looking into house dust as an indicator of potential exposure – see here and here), but what I really wanted to write about was the ranking of manufacturers and retailers who are taking steps of making their products more friendly from an environmental health perspective, including the elimination of chemicals ranked for priority action by the OSPAR Commission:

Ikea, the furniture manufacturer, gets a gold star from the Safer Products Project for eliminating brominated fire retardants from their product line, and for signing the Safer Chemicals Pledge.

Interface, the carpet manufacturer, gets a gold star for developing a closed-loop product cycle for its carpeting (customers return to Interface carpeting that is at the end of its design life, for recycling) that is not based on petrochemicals.

There are others that don’t fare so well, as you can see from the site. The key point is that people who wish to use their power as purchasers to mold corporate behavior regarding chemical use have a tool for aiding their buying decisions. Nothing to get too excited over, because we have a long way to go, but it’s a start. For a sense of what that path looks like, check in to the Clean Production Action site, which has a great graphic showing the progression from clean processes, to clean products, to closed-loop systems to the bio-based society.