(ARA) – We spend 90 percent of our lives indoors, according to
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A typical day can
include traveling from home to work and back home again with a few
periodic trips to schools, the grocery store, the bank, malls and
entertainment venues. We depend on our homes, offices, retail
stores and other structures to keep us safe; but can buildings also
help keep us healthy?
Recent EPA studies indicate that exposure to air pollutants may
be two to five times higher indoors than outside. Air pollutants
can affect all buildings equally and have many sources, including
pets, tobacco products, gas cooking stoves, building materials,
paints, cleaning products and pesticides. Exposure to air
pollutants can lead to negative health effects like asthma,
irritation of the eyes and throat, headaches, dizziness, fatigue
and allergic reactions.
Although these circumstances are concerning, you can do many
simple things to improve the indoor air quality you and your family
are exposed to.
Also consider this: “More and more retail businesses are
assimilating ‘greener’ operations in order to satisfy rising
consumer demands to go green,” says Scott Hite, chief architect at
TD Bank. “As a result, consumers can choose to do business with
retailers that build stores that provide good indoor air quality,
make an investment in renewable energy and build sustainability to
minimize their environmental footprint.”
Here are a few important things to consider:
* Keep it smoke-free. At home, banish smoking indoors and if it
hasn’t already been done, ask your boss to do the same at work.
Consider doing business with retailers that don’t allow smoking
inside or near their businesses in order to keep their customers
safe from tobacco smoke, a harmful air pollutant.
* Consider LEED certification. Do your research to find
businesses that have pledged to be carbon neutral and are building
LEED certified stores. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design, evaluates buildings for their overall
performance in indoor environmental quality and four other
environmental areas.
“There a number of retail businesses that have made commitments
to building LEED certified structures,” says Hite. “At TD Bank, for
example, we made a commitment to be carbon neutral and to build
LEED certified green stores that will benefit our customers’ and
employees’ overall health.”
* Avoid products with VOCs. Paints, sealers, adhesives and many
other building products emit VOCs, volatile organic chemicals.
Exposure to these chemicals can cause numerous health effects.
For your home and at work, choose products that have no or low
VOCs. Retail businesses that are carbon neutral with green stores
also use building materials with no or low VOCs in order to achieve
LEED certification.
* Choose green cleaning. Harsh cleaning chemicals contribute to
poor indoor air quality and can cause adverse health reactions.
Instead, choose from a large variety of cleaning products with low
toxicity levels. Wherever possible, also store chemicals and
cleaning supplies in well ventilated areas.
Buildings can be healthy through a combination of good
technology, the right products, and a healthy dose of good old
common sense. Knowing which rules to enforce at home, which
products to purchase and choosing retail businesses that are making
strides to provide healthier indoor air quality for their
customers, can prevent many potential health problems in the
future.
Courtesy of ARAcontent
