Our Children At Risk

INDOOR AIR POLLUTION

Children spend substantial amounts of time indoors, at home and at school in particular. One study estimated that children are indoors, especially at home, 85 percent of the day -time spent indoors decreasing with age.^[109] Awareness about indoor air quality has increased considerably in the last fifteen years, particularly with the development of more energy-efficient homes and buildings that have reduced rates of exchange between indoor and outdoor air. Some of the typical indoor air pollutants include environmental tobacco smoke, wood smoke containing particulates, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides (from unvented gas-burning stoves and heaters), respirable particles (from cooking fumes and household dust), formaldehyde (from pressed wood products and furniture, environmental tobacco smoke, urea-formaldehyde foam insulation, and permanent-press fabrics), and volatile organic compounds (from paint, paint strippers, solvents, wood preservatives, aerosol sprays, cleansers and disinfectants, moth repellents and other pesticides, and air fresheners).

Studies have found that levels of certain pollutants are far greater indoors than outdoors. With volatile organic chemicals, indoor personal exposures were typically two to five times outdoor levels.^[110] For highest personal exposures, such as during or after paint stripping, solvent levels may be a thousand times background outdoor levels.^[111] The EPA's Total Exposure Assessment Methodology (TEAM) studies have shown that for 18 chemicals, median indoor air concentrations ranged from two to twenty times higher inside homes than outdoors.^[112] Persons wearing or storing freshly dry-cleaned clothes had significantly higher exposures to tetrachloroethylene, and persons using mothballs and bathroom toilet deodorants had greatly increased exposures to paradichlorobenzene.^[113] Another TEAM study showed that exposure to chloroform is mainly due to the chlorination of drinking water and that inhalation exposure during a shower is comparable to drinking two liters of tap water a day.^[114]

The EPA does not have authority to regulate indoor air quality directly (although it can control some sources of indoor air pollution such as airborne releases of volatile organic chemicals from drinking water). No federal law requires the Agency to establish indoor air quality standards. To date, the EPA's efforts to improve indoor air quality have focused primarily on research, coordination between different federal agencies, and public education. The potential risks to children from indoor air pollutants are significant. Clearly the federal government needs to take more action, including setting standards to limit airborne releases of chemicals from products used indoors such as pressed wood products and furniture, paints, solvents, paint strippers, cleansers, and disinfectants.