What Are Volatile Organic Compounds and How to Avoid Them?

Posted on 14. Dec, 2009 by Oksana Irwin in Indoor Air Quality

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors. VOCs are emitted by a wide array of products numbering in the thousands. Examples include: paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, office equipment such as copiers and printers, correction fluids and carbonless copy paper, graphics and craft materials including glues and adhesives, permanent markers, and photographic solutions.

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