Breathe Clean Air

• Make your home a no-smoking zone.
• Ventilate your home often: Open your windows to let polluted air out and let clean air in.
• Check the air in your home:Test for radon and install carbon monoxide and smoke detectors.

Keep Humidity Low in Your Home

• Repair leaky plumbing and seal cracks in basement floors and walls.
• Open a window or turn on the exhaust fan when showering.
• Place dehumidifiers or air conditioners in damp rooms. Clean and/or replace filters regularly.
•  Maintain the humidity level between 30-60%, using a moisture detector (hygrometer).

Freshen Rooms Naturally

• Clear pollutants from the air with potted plants and cut flowers.
• Sprinkle baking soda on your carpet to absorb odors before vacuuming.
• Use natural herbs and essential oils instead of scented candles or air fresheners.

Avoid Products with Strong Fumes and Toxic Ingredients

• Avoid all pesticides and chemical fertilizers in and around your home.
• Use non-toxic, mild, or least-toxic household cleaners.
• Stop using aerosol sprays, which can pollute the air with toxic solvents.
• Limit exposure to formaldehyde and other VOCs (volatile organic compounds).
  • Ventilate, especially when you renovate.
  • Use low or no-VOC paints and sealants.
  • Avoid buying urea-formaldehyde (UF) pressed wood products (subfloors, doors, cabinets, etc.)
  • Wash new clothing, bedding and draperies twice prior to use.
  • Avoid permanent press fabrics and stain repellant sprays.
  • Hang dry-cleaned clothes outside or in a well-ventilated area before bringing them inside.

Limit Indoor Burning of Fuel and Wood

• Burn only hardwoods, not pine or pressed wood logs. Do not burn printed paper or particleboard.
• Clean the flue and chimney annually.
• Buy/use wood stoves certified after 1992. They emit less pollutants than older ones.
• Choose electric stove/oven over gas.
• Open a window or turn on the exhaust fan when using a gas stove.
• Avoid kerosene and gas space heaters.

Source: Healthy Child Healthy World

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Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are chemicals that evaporate easily at room temperature. These VOCs may cause harmful health effects, and have been linked to everything from headaches to cancer. VOCs are commonly emitted from everyday items such as carpets, vinyl floors, upholstery fabrics, pint, air fresheners, and even cosmetics.

You can’t see them, but they’re all around us. They aren’t listed as ingredients on the objects we bring in our home, but they’re often there. The Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, a wide range of carbon-based molecules (organic compounds) used in a wide range of products that find their way into our homes. Under normal conditions, they vaporize, effectively leaving their host and entering the air (that’s the “volatile” part) where they combine with other airborne compounds that makes it heard to breath.

The U.S. EPA definesVOCs as “any compound of carbon, excluding carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbonic acid, metallic carbides or carbonates, and ammonium carbonate, which participates in atmospheric photochemical reactions,” but also includes a list of dozens of exceptions for compounds “determined to have negligible photochemical reactivity.”

Though they exist everywhere in the environment — the most common Volatile Organic Compounds is methane, which comes from everything from wetlands to cow farts and other ruminant gases to rice agriculture — they are most well-known for the harm they can cause indoors, where they can be introduced via paint, carpets, furnishings, and cleaning agents.

Volatile Organic Compounds contribute to poor indoor air quality, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates is often two to five times worse than the air outside, but concentrations of VOCs can be up to 1,000 times greater indoors than out! Common VOCs include formaldehyde, used in many glues and adhesives, including those found in wood veneers, plywood and particle board, and polyurethane, which is used in many foams, paints, varnishes, and construction sealants.

Volatile Organic Compoundsfrom products (paint, carpets, vinyl, furniture, est.) gets off-gas VOCs into the air, contributing to poor indoor air quality and consequently present a danger to human health. At high concentrations, some VOCs can cause chronic and acute health effects; others are known carcinogens.

To avoid and/or reduce presents of VOCs in your home, it’s recommended to use water-based  glues, adhesives, finishes, and soy-based foams. Buying or making your own non toxic and green cleaners helps ensure that you aren’t adding toxins to the air when you clean them.

By Collin Dunn via Treehugger ;

Source: US Environmental Protection Agency

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