Years ago; after my doctor diagnosed me with "environmental allergies" as one of the causes of my sinus problems; and one of the things he said I was allergic to was household dust.
Since then; I have studied about dust and what's in it; and came up with some surprises. For one thing; there can be over 10,000 separate things and chemicals in household dust.
There is more than just dirt, house dust is a mix of sloughed-off skin cells, hair, clothing fibers, bacteria, dust mites, bits of dead bugs, soil particles, pollen, and microscopic specks of plastic. Plus a whole lot more. The stuff in dust can cause cancer and even weight gain.
There has been a lot of research by scientist into what's in household dust and the toxicity it may cause.
Scientists study dust to try to get a handle on both of these roles: as a proxy to better understand what chemicals are in our surroundings and how they move, and as a way to characterize what exactly we are exposed to via dust. The relationship between dust and human health remains uncertain. Researchers know that dust is an important source of exposure to certain pollutants—especially for infants and toddlers, who spend 90% of their time indoors, put almost anything in their mouths, and are more sensitive than adults to many of the compounds found in dust. But they haven’t nailed down the extent of health risks from dust exposure nor which compounds and sources are of greatest concern. And many compounds remain unknown. “The few to a hundred compounds that we know are in dust don’t encompass the universe of chemicals in commerce, which number in the tens of thousands to over a million,” says P. Lee Ferguson, an environmental chemist at Duke University. To reveal the full spectrum of chemicals in dust, researchers are turning to high-powered analytical tools. Dust is no longer something to sweep under the rug.
Researchers are still building their understanding of the complex ways that volatile and semivolatile compounds interact in our surroundings, sorbing onto and desorbing from surfaces. They know that consumer products—vinyl flooring, personal care products, electronics, furniture, carpet pads, paints, cleaning products, and more—have a strong driving force to shed compounds into materials with lower concentrations of the substances. For example, a flame retardant might volatilize off the plastic parts of a TV set into the air, stick onto airborne particles, and move into dust, which settles on floors and carpets. The compounds will continue to migrate until they reach equilibrium with the surroundings, says Diamond. And heating the product, such as turning on a computer, also speeds migration into the home environment; a compound will condense in a cooler part of the room, where dust often resides.
Research from numerous labs has shown that frequent hand washing, using a vacuum with a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter to capture the smallest particles, and dusting with a damp cloth will reduce personal exposure to chemicals lurking in dust. Wood floors, which can be easily cleaned with a damp mop, are preferable to carpets, since normal vacuuming only removes about 10% of the dirt entrenched in carpet fibers and pads.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i7/Tracing-chemistry-household-dust.html#:~:text=More
Since then; I have studied about dust and what's in it; and came up with some surprises. For one thing; there can be over 10,000 separate things and chemicals in household dust.
There is more than just dirt, house dust is a mix of sloughed-off skin cells, hair, clothing fibers, bacteria, dust mites, bits of dead bugs, soil particles, pollen, and microscopic specks of plastic. Plus a whole lot more. The stuff in dust can cause cancer and even weight gain.
There has been a lot of research by scientist into what's in household dust and the toxicity it may cause.
Scientists study dust to try to get a handle on both of these roles: as a proxy to better understand what chemicals are in our surroundings and how they move, and as a way to characterize what exactly we are exposed to via dust. The relationship between dust and human health remains uncertain. Researchers know that dust is an important source of exposure to certain pollutants—especially for infants and toddlers, who spend 90% of their time indoors, put almost anything in their mouths, and are more sensitive than adults to many of the compounds found in dust. But they haven’t nailed down the extent of health risks from dust exposure nor which compounds and sources are of greatest concern. And many compounds remain unknown. “The few to a hundred compounds that we know are in dust don’t encompass the universe of chemicals in commerce, which number in the tens of thousands to over a million,” says P. Lee Ferguson, an environmental chemist at Duke University. To reveal the full spectrum of chemicals in dust, researchers are turning to high-powered analytical tools. Dust is no longer something to sweep under the rug.
Researchers are still building their understanding of the complex ways that volatile and semivolatile compounds interact in our surroundings, sorbing onto and desorbing from surfaces. They know that consumer products—vinyl flooring, personal care products, electronics, furniture, carpet pads, paints, cleaning products, and more—have a strong driving force to shed compounds into materials with lower concentrations of the substances. For example, a flame retardant might volatilize off the plastic parts of a TV set into the air, stick onto airborne particles, and move into dust, which settles on floors and carpets. The compounds will continue to migrate until they reach equilibrium with the surroundings, says Diamond. And heating the product, such as turning on a computer, also speeds migration into the home environment; a compound will condense in a cooler part of the room, where dust often resides.
Research from numerous labs has shown that frequent hand washing, using a vacuum with a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter to capture the smallest particles, and dusting with a damp cloth will reduce personal exposure to chemicals lurking in dust. Wood floors, which can be easily cleaned with a damp mop, are preferable to carpets, since normal vacuuming only removes about 10% of the dirt entrenched in carpet fibers and pads.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i7/Tracing-chemistry-household-dust.html#:~:text=More
