Scented products cause indoor air pollution on par with car exhaust

https://newatlas.com/environment/indoor-air-pollution-scented-terpenes/

by clumsysmurf • 1 year ago

383 189 1 year ago

newatlas.com

userbinator• 1 year ago

...and so do perfumes, most likely.

MrMcCall5• 1 year ago

And methanol is not good for anyone, in any measure.

I'm pretty sure that's why, 100 years ago, there were so many blues folks with names like "Blind Lemon Jefferson" -- they had drunk bad hooch that got too much methanol instead of ethanol. Blindness is direct side effect of methanol poisoning.

InitialLastName• 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure that's why, 100 years ago, there were so many blues folks with names like "Blind Lemon Jefferson"

Also because in a predominantly agricultural society, music was one of very few self-sustaining pursuits for a blind (or otherwise unsuited to farm work) person. Looking through the 'blind' names in [0] most were either born blind or had an alternate explanation (usually accidents) for their blindness.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_of_blues_mus...

xnx3• 1 year ago

On average, we inhale 20 lbs of air per day. This is greater by weight than the food or water we consume in a day. We should be paying a lot more attention to air quality.

asdff3• 1 year ago

I can't help but feel like it has taken a nosedive as well. Modern homes are sealed and don't recirculate much outdoor air. As a result you have all this modern american living plastic material constantly offgassing. your fleece shedding microplastic particulate into the air that you then breath, eat, burn over the stove and inhale the fumes. You can't even do anything about it. Get rid of all the plastic you want in your life and the water supply is what is contaminated next. Your neighbors dryer exhaust and their fleece polluting your air. Restaurants. The food suppliers. Move a thousand miles away to the tip of the mountaintop upstream of everything conceivable, and you are liable to be bombarded with it carried via updrafts from around the world along with the rest of the usual pollution.

We can't even slow down the consumerism. Everyone's job around the world is someway tied into this rampant production of cheap plastic goods to replace cheap plastic goods from yesterweek. You try and nip it in the bud everyone is liable to lose their job and everything might very well collapse because of how we chose to stack this deck of cards on this planet.

joemazerino• 1 year ago

Modern homes have to have HRV systems for removing indoor air and replacing it.

xnx3• 1 year ago

It can be disheartening. I don't know that there's much strong evidence yet that air polluted with synthetic particles leads to bad health effects, but I do know that are lungs have been subjected to things in the last 100 years that they hadn't encountered in the previous 300 million.

readthenotes12• 1 year ago

I uploaded you for nosedive and didn't read anything after that. Figured it couldn't get any better!

mlsu• 1 year ago

Air quality is much, much better than it used to be.

We used to burn leaded gasoline in our cars, coal pucks to heat our homes, smoke directly into our lungs on purpose, god knows what else.

I do agree with the broader point though.

woah• 1 year ago

get some air filters

erikerikson• 1 year ago

Sealed modern houses usually come with an HRV or ERV so that your air is regularly replaced filtered fresh air.

alt2275• 1 year ago

My house in the UK is 300 years old. It is built of stone with proper ventilation built in everywhere. It never gets damp, never too cold or hot. Air circulates enough to constantly be fresh yet not quick enough to create a draft.

Its a shame homes arent built like that anymore. Looking at how houses like this work really shows how we have created solutions to our own problems in modern home building.

lm284696• 1 year ago

Air tightness is fine, because when it's done anywhere close to the right way it comes with filtered heat recovery ventilation.

You're right about building materials, but that's true regardless of the air tightness: engineered woods, all kind of glues, all kind of foams, paints, sealants, hard to tell how nasty they are but they for sure aren't beneficial.

Cthulhu_4• 1 year ago

Sealed houses in favor of climate control / energy usage has a big impact on people I'm sure. I'm lucky ish in that my house is well insulated but has central ventilation, but only 'suck' so it draws in fresh air from outside. In the same neighbourhood, they built houses with recirculation systems with a heat exchanger so that outside air was pulled in through that. But because the system was noisy (constant fan noises), people would turn the system on low or completely off, causing health issues due to buildup of CO2 and the like. That was uh, a bit of a problem for them and the builders.

amluto10• 1 year ago

Competently built modern houses are well sealed, so not much air filters in through leaked walls, doors, etc. Instead, outside air is actively introduced through a filtered intake, by a fan (or by deliberate negative pressure, but that’s riskier, as air will come in through other paths too, bypassing the filter and potentially introducing contaminants from the structure and/or soil into the building).

There are plenty of systems to do this. My favorite is an ERV, with an aftermarket, oversized, upgraded supply filter.

moralestapia2• 1 year ago

It's probably way more than that, IMO. Like 10x more.

Edit: Back of the envelope math puts it around 60-70kg per day, conservatively.

Can I just stop being right?

xnx3• 1 year ago

Where does our math differ?

2,000 gallons/day * 4.6 grams/gallon = 20.3 lbs.

https://www.lung.org/blog/how-your-lungs-work

rajnathani• 1 year ago

Not to forget also that inhaled micro/nano particles get into the bloodstream more easily than ingested particles.

autoexec• 1 year ago

But have you thought about how you’re contributing to air pollution inside of where you live by using seemingly innocuous products like scented, non-combustible candles?

What is a non-combustible candle? Searching for "flame-free candle" just gives results for fake LED ones. The rest of the article talks about "scented wax melts" are they the same?

CharlesW• 1 year ago

I believe this is a strange way to refer to wickless candles, which are used with candle warmers.

MrMcCall5• 1 year ago

Yeah, I stopped going to houses that ran those plug-in diffusers.

The rule is: don't put it into your lungs or onto your skin if you wouldn't put it into your mouth.

Those people are just paying people to poison them, however slowly.

sethammons• 1 year ago

Most (all?) "essential oil" products, used in diffusers, are edible. I like the peppermint oil as a breath freshener.

marcosdumay2• 1 year ago

Probably, those wick-only stuff that people put one end in an oil, and let it evaporate though the body.

porphyra• 1 year ago

I wonder just how bad those essential oil diffusers are, compared with, say, smoking, laser printers, and tyre microplastics.

huang_chung• 1 year ago

My plan to sell flavoured printer toner has been foiled.

Who would not want their print out to smell like fresh apple pie?

JadeNB• 1 year ago

My plan to sell flavoured printer toner has been foiled.
Who would not want their print out to smell like fresh apple pie?

I know it's a joke, but surely flavoured printer toner would taste like fresh apple pie?

jedbrooke• 1 year ago

I mean scented markers are a thing (or are they gone now because they’re “too toxic”?) so scented (or flavored) printer toner doesn’t seem too far fetched

and yes I am one of those people who enjoyed the smell of freshly laser printed pages

Bloating• 1 year ago

Or burning CPAP machines: https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-ResMed-AirSense-10-...

toddmorey• 1 year ago

I wonder about the inline air fragrance systems used by pretty much every hotel these days to produce a "signature scent".

alabastervlog4• 1 year ago

These must be nicer hotels than any of the ones I’ve ever been to…

kstrauser2• 1 year ago

The signature scent of Motel 6 is leftover Long John Silvers and Waffle House.

drusenko2• 1 year ago

I am having a hard time reconciling the claim in the post headline with common sense.

One frustrating aspect to the study is that it was hard to determine whether they are comparing like for like per unit time. They say the “operation of a gas stove” and “running a generator” — but for how long? It doesn’t seem like they tested each of these things under similar conditions in their lab but rather relied on other studies for that data. Figure 2(b) right does seem to measure this but they haven’t labeled the chart with clear labels and the description is a bit ambiguous.

After reading the study, I think the issue is that the claim it is making is slightly different than the one in the headline. They are measuring VOC and ~PM2.5 pollutants, but gas engines (and gas stoves presumably as well) produce other pollutants like CO, which is what kills you of you run a gas generator indoors.

Havoc• 1 year ago

It’s likely selective factors being measured but on some metric the top engines produce outputs cleaner than air going in so I don’t think it’s all that improbable

timewizard2• 1 year ago

CO, which is what kills you of you run a gas generator indoors.

That's the proximate cause.

They are measuring VOC and ~PM2.5 pollutants

Which aren't good for your lungs long term.

the claim in the post headline with common sense.

If you can smell it, it's because little particles of it are in the air, so your scented products necessarily put PM of some size into your home. In other words you are polluting your home merely to produce an olfactory sensation. The lack of common sense in the market for these products has always baffled me.

MrMcCall5• 1 year ago

Well said. I'm not the first to say it, but: common sense ain't so common.

Here's some recommendations from our household, related to my previous battles with mold-related illness:

RabbitAir hepa-level air purifiers. Pricey, but worth it.

Dr. Bronner's soaps. We use them for showering, washing hands and dishes. No dishwasher here; our son has taken responsibility for it, in exchange for our fascilitating his chess-oriented lifestyle.

7th Generation laundry detergent. Unfortunately, we have to use a public laundramat, so we're getting some of the polluted stuff washing through the machines' detergent/softener resevoirs, but the poor have no choice.

We keep the windows closed during rush hour timeframes, and I keep watch on wind directions and know where the fresh air comes from.

We also try to get out into green space away from traffic and get a walk in or just let the teens knock the soccer ball around a bit.

drusenko2• 1 year ago

You’re missing my point entirely. VOCs and PM2.5 are bad for you no doubt, which means this study is showing that these non combustible scented candles are producing measurable levels of dangerous indoor air pollution — we’re all in agreement there. That’s not at all what I meant by common sense and my comment was in no way intended to be a defense of scented products.

But the headline says “Scented products cause indoor air pollution on par with car exhaust”. This is not supported by the study. PM2.5 and VOCs are not the only forms of indoor air pollution. Combustion produces other deleterious byproducts that negatively impact human health.

Run a car in your garage for a day and run scented candle and tell me which is worse for you. That is what I mean by common sense.

seabass-labrax• 1 year ago

I fully support research like this, because it's always good to get proper data about phenomena. However, I can't help feeling that the results are unsurprising: how could you smell the scented candles if they weren't producing nanoparticles? Surely the existence or abundance of these nanoparticles was never in question?

protocolture2• 1 year ago

This was my initial thought too. Like if I grow a bunch of nice smelling flowers, and crack open a window during the spring. Am I worse or better off than purchasing a scented candle.

Should we as a species stop nice smelling things entirely.

alabastervlog4• 1 year ago

Imagine how much “air pollution” one inhales when taking a big whiff of a nice curry.

readthenotes12• 1 year ago

The sub-species that I belong to does stop smelling those nice things entirely as my nose clogs up, eyes water, and convulsions known to many as "sneezing" take over my body.

terribleperson3• 1 year ago

No, but I wouldn't complain if we stopped scenting every damn cleaning and hygiene product. Please, no scented hand soap, or laundry detergent, or especially dish detergent. I'm not gonna complain if people want scented conditioner, but you probably don't need scented shampoo if you're going to condition anyways.

Intuitively I'd guess the scented candle is worse than the flowers. I doubt soot and vaporized wax are good for you.

leephillips2• 1 year ago

how could you smell the scented candles if they weren't producing nanoparticles?

By smelling a gas?

smallerize2• 1 year ago

Gases are also made of particles. Molecules that you can smell are easily a nanometer across.

energy1233• 1 year ago

Don't underestimate the amount of education needed for this opinion to be understood and enter conscious awareness.

The marketing ploy of an attractive woman breathing in those delicious scents counts for much more to the majority of the population.

Regulators need to crack down on this deception, it's the only proven way.

Lanolderen3• 1 year ago

I think it's more so that people don't believe it's bad unless they start drinking parfume.

And I'm like that as well. I have a a Febreeze oil thing stuck in a smart outlet so it works only a bit before I wake up and in the evening and my room smells like strawberries at the moment. I also shower with the scented stuff whenever I don't have to use the medicinal stuff, etc.

I know the scent probably isn't healthy but I also don't believe it's bad enough to where I should stop enjoying it. Especially considering people who vape aren't dying all over the place. You've got people huffing scents out of X00 Watt sticks for years before it fucks them up in some way in comparison to which my exposure is probably invisible on the graph.

KennyBlanken3• 1 year ago

Read the abstract of the paper. They were demonstrating that combustionless scented products generate very similar levels and types (in chemical composition, size, etc) to scented candles, which they considered noteworthy because many assume the combustion-less products are safer for you (they do not claim to be studying, nor do they make any claims, about health impacts.)

amluto10• 1 year ago

You can smell genuine, non-particulate gaseous molecules just fine. The issue is that there’s a large class of compounds that will form actual particles, and this phenomenon can be responsible for a surprisingly large fraction of smog.

Clamchop• 1 year ago

You don't smell particles, you smell volatile compounds, mostly organic, aka VOCs. These are in their gas phase.

This is true of anything that smells. Food, flowers, the forest, breath, body odor, rain on dry ground, your car...

Many ingredients used in modern perfumery (scenting your detergent is still perfumery) are novel compounds, like galaxolide, but traditionally and still often enough they are naturally-occurring chemicals, although still synthesized in a factory from petrochemicals a lot of the time.

Article seems to be about a chemical reaction of terpenes with ozone, and the result is particles. Terpenes are a specific but large class of aromachemical, both natural and artificial. There are many others.

Even products marketed as unscented tend to be scented, to mask off odors from their functional ingredients.

Just adding some context.

theodric2• 1 year ago

I don't understand why you'd want anything in your house to release smells independently of delivering some essential function. I find it distracting at best, and headache-inducing at worst. Cosmetic products are particularly offensive. Let this study serve as a call to eliminate stinky products!

intreble• 1 year ago

I agree wholeheartedly. The more unnatural the scent the more it impacts me. Cinnamon is tolerable but as we trend towards “beach day bonfire” it creates a feeling in my olfactory system similar to tasting something sickly sweet. I think it ties back to my brain smelling what I expect to be eating.

jjk1663• 1 year ago

Generally the "pleasant" odor is meant to cover up some combination of "unpleasant" odors. It's nice when the area around a liter box doesn't smell like cat piss.

theodric2• 1 year ago

I would counter that it now smells like a combination of perfume and cat piss

jmward012• 1 year ago

The challenge with any article like this is that the correlated impact on health outcomes is always implied in the article but is rarely studied as part of the research cited. Just because a is bad and b has a property similar to a that doesn't imply b has the same harmful impacts as a. I really wish articles would limit big headlines like this unless the research cited was directly comparing mortality and health outcomes directly. If the study this article was based on came to the conclusion that 'average household aerosol use has a similar associated mortality risk as average city car pollution' then the title could have been warranted but instead we got a bit of click-bait. A slightly better title could have been 'Scented products cause unexpected levels of indoor air pollution'. I'd even argue 'Scented products cause concerning levels of indoor air pollution' is a reasonable title since it is worth our concern and further study.

7thaccount3• 1 year ago

Not much to add here other than as someone with terrible allergies and asthma, the constant need for plugin air fresheners, scented candles, scented laundry detergent, and scented lotions, perfumes, febreeze, and scented deodorant drives me crazy. I don't think normal folks realize how they're breathing in straight chemicals all day.

TylerE2• 1 year ago

One of the reasons I still mask. An N95, while not perfect (an N100 with a carbon layer would be the real ticket), blocks a lot of the common scents. Things like those dangly air fresheners every ride share driver has about 5 of.

laborcontract• 1 year ago

Chemical allergies are an area where I'm fine oversimplifying decisions and using a simple heuristic of "if my body says no, stay the heck away."

Of our five senses, smell is the most well attuned for detecting something that'll hurt us internally (ie poison cancer).

MyOutfitIsVague3• 1 year ago

I hate all that stuff too, but I have to nit-pick the last sentence. Everything you breathe is chemicals. Everything that is good for you and bad for you is chemicals.

This in particular bothers me because I end up having this discussion with family members all the time who are convinced that "chemicals" are bad for you, and they only eat food without "chemicals".

14• 1 year ago

I am thankful my workplace has a no scent policy. Unfortunately I have to go into clients homes all day so sometimes run into heavily scented homes. If we report it our boss will inform the client they need to remove it or not use it prior to our visits or open a window. I am thankful that I am naturally not a smelly person (confirmed by girlfriends) and I shower with non scented soap and I don't ever wear deodorant. Sadly I have teens. They over spray perfumes and colognes to the point that I can't even be near them at times. I hope the unscented trend picks up and spreads to more places. Thinking about the topic of scents were you around when you could basically smoke anywhere? I remember the days walking in a mall smoking and people would just drop the smoke and step on it then walk away. Banning smoking from public places where I live was the greatest thing.

kstrauser2• 1 year ago

Oh man. A previous employer had someone come around and spray for bugs monthly. I told them to let me know when it was going to be so I could stay away for an afternoon. The exterminator insisted it was perfectly safe and wouldn’t bother me. Yeah, well, immune stuff runs in the family — my older sister had lupus — and it did, in fact, bother me.

As a test or something, he came around spraying without telling me. I was in my office when I felt my sinuses starting to swell and my chest started tightening. When I walked out into the common room and saw him smiling at me with a “see, told you it’s your imagination” grin, my coworkers had to drag me outside because I was ready to kill him.

Look, man, I’d freaking love not to have asthma and other allergy stuff. I don’t like taking handfuls of antihistamines. I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass. I just don’t, like, enjoying dying.

anal_reactor• 1 year ago

I am the opposite. My nose has barely any sensitivity, so I love intense smells, because they actually make me smell something. Also, fuck the people who keep windows open 24/7 even during winter. They make everyone cold just because the air isn't perfectly fresh.

At my previous job we had a guy who'd always come and instantly open the windows. I know that I'm the minority with my preference to keep them shut, so I just suffered in silence, except for these first 30 minutes before he showed up, those were a blessing. He lived outside of the city and commuted, and one time he really needed to sleep inside the city, and I had a spare bed, so I let him sleep at my place. He walked in and instantly said "Can we open the window?", to which I replied "NO, WE CANNOT". I cannot describe how satisfying that felt.

ako• 1 year ago

I had a leaky air freshener attached to wall, it dripped on top of baseboard, the chemicals did a better job removing the paint on the baseboard that regular paint removers…

exe343• 1 year ago

same here. my downstairs neighbour burns garlic for every meal, and then burns some kind of incense to get rid of the smell of garlic. both of them somehow come up through the floor and make me retch, so I have to open the window - at which point she goes outside for a smoke and most of it seems to come in through that window.

live among people, they said. it'll be nice, they said.

KennyBlanken3• 1 year ago

The challenge with any article like this is that the correlated impact on health outcomes is always implied in the article but is rarely studied as part of the research cited.

The scope of the research is determined by the researchers conducting the research, not what you think it should be, especially since you do not understand the basics of the scientific method - or that research is highly iterative and derivative. A great deal of research sets out only to establish whether it is worth pursuing further research on a particular hypothesis.

I really wish articles would limit big headlines like this unless the research cited was directly comparing mortality and health outcomes directly.

That wasn't the scope of the research.

If the study this article was based on came to the conclusion that 'average household aerosol use has a similar associated mortality risk as average city car pollution' then the title could have been warranted but instead we got a bit of click-bait.

Proving health risks was not the scope of the research, and nothing in the title of the article, the PR release from Purdue, or the paper's title, even remotely implies what you seem to think it does. If I say the shed is green, you think that means seafoam green, and you're profoundly disappointed to discover the shed is british racing green, the only person to blame is you.

The purpose of the paper was to demonstrate that wax "melts", which many consider "safer" than aromatic candles, produce similar levels of the similar particles as scented candles. They studied the counts, compositions, and the formation process of the particles. In the abstract they state that their results show the need for more study of the effect of the particles on health.

The point of the title and coverage in the news story is to give the layperson something they can relate to, not to be extremely accurate, pedantic, and understate things.

Twirrim• 1 year ago

I found that gap annoying, when they finally did address it it was such a hand wavey thing that doesn't actually say it's bad for you. We know particles are being produced, because smell doesn't come from nowhere, so in some regards the whole bit of research could be read as "thing that produces particles, produces particles. Surprise!"

MattSayar• 1 year ago

If it's studies you want with quantifiable impacts, I'd recommend you read (part of) this investigation (because it's so long)[0]. A couple of the top recommendations are to extinguish candles with a lid and to ban incense.

[0] https://dynomight.net/air/

skwb• 1 year ago

Completely off topic to the actual article - but...

I really get irked a lot by seeing (overly obvious) ai generated images being used for stock photos. One of the reasons my wife and I still subscribe to a couple of newspapers is that the photography helps bring to life the story being told. Why where these photos taken and how do they impact the story. You don't get that same visceral emotional reaction with low quality cartoon images.

caminanteblanco• 1 year ago

Does anyone have any clue what the point of "scentless wax melts" even is? Like isn't the scent the whole point of the product?

forgetfreeman• 1 year ago

The point is to make money. Any notional utility by the consumer is a byproduct.

KennyBlanken3• 1 year ago

As is explained in the research paper, they are marketed as (or considered by the public to be) safer than candles because they don't involve combustion. They show that the same amount/type of particles are nearly the same between the two.

neilv• 1 year ago

When I saw the title, I half-expected it to be this researcher: https://www.drsteinemann.com/

I found her work years ago, when I had a suspicion of why I'd get headaches while folding laundry. A Web search turned up her papers, I stopped using dryer sheets and scented laundry detergent, and laundry-folding headaches stopped immediately.

Separately, it turned out a bunch of people and pets who had windows near the laundry room vents of my large condo building would get headaches and breathing problems from the exhaust. The complaints stopped down after most residents stopped using scented laundry products. Though IIUC, the dryer exhaust can still contain some nasties, just not as much as before.

culopatin2• 1 year ago

Random smells can trigger headaches for me too. When I was little it was Fanta or Crush, something about the orange. Now I found the Trader Joe’s blood orange tea has the same scent and immediately triggers something.

Diesel exhaust is another one, but that’s not just a scent.

Surprisingly anything else motor related is fine. I’ve been soaked in brake cleaner and race fuel and it hasn’t been a problem.

Ekaros• 1 year ago

When you get down to basics it is all about conservation of mass. Nearly all of the stuff in these products have to end somewhere. So if you have candle or air freshener and it "disappears" with use. It must go to air you breath and then well surfaces and so on.

Meaning that well whatever is in them might get inhaled. Or improperly burned...

instagib• 1 year ago

Is 30 minutes too much to handle, to burn an indoor candle?

behind one door and up one floor.

two air handlers blowing with air purifiers of four.

Found two filters sooty and the cpap tasted like campfire booty.

shellfishgene• 1 year ago

"A forest is a pristine environment..." Hmm, is that really so? The forest air is also full of pollen, fungal spores, viruses and bacteria, all kinds of volatile organic molecules and so on. The terpenes mentioned as problematic come from conifers after all.

lm284696• 1 year ago

Things we had hundreds millions of years to evolve with and adapt too... now we have brake pad dust and haribo strawberry flavored candles

Cthulhu_4• 1 year ago

Would the world be a better place if we had brake pad dust flavored candies? I like to believe so.

zemvpferreira• 1 year ago

I'm pretty allergic to all those things so I'm going to disagree with your implied preference and take the haribo and brake pad dust all day.

jjk1663• 1 year ago

There weren't many North American conifers on the African savannah when humans were evolving, and our ancestors' reproductive success was not generally affected by air quality. We haven't evolved immunity to things like volcanic gasses which have been around forever. Many plants deliberately evolved to produce toxins. A few of these we find delicious specifically because we did not co-evolve with those plants. Natural = safe is a bad heuristic.

amluto10• 1 year ago

Not just conifers. In Los Angeles, liquidambar trees are planted all over for autumn color, and it turns out that they’re an enormous contributor to smog formation.

hinkley3• 1 year ago

And male trees upping pm because they’re lonely and looking for love.

wyclif2• 1 year ago

I don't have any scented products in my house. Ventilation is key, especially in common areas like the living room. You should open the window occasionally even in the dead of winter to help circulate the air.

Some other things I do are regular vacuuming and dusting; you might be surprised how effective this can be in freshening the air naturally. Dust can trap odors and make a room smell stale if not removed often.

It also helps to clean soft surfaces frequently, because fabric traps odors.

Abundant houseplants help naturally purify the air. Activated charcoal in discreet places absorbs odors without adding any scent.

Unscented products like vinegar or baking soda work well for carpet and upholstery (the vinegar smell dissipates quickly).

dkdbejwi383• 1 year ago

Abundant houseplants help naturally purify the air.

apparently the effect is grossly overstated. You'd need to cram the place (in all dimensions) so tightly with plants there'd be no room for humans or furniture of any kind for any appreciable difference.

tpxl• 1 year ago

Given that the planet is not crammed in all dimensions so tightly there'd be no room for humans, and yet we have fresh air outside, I'm doubting your statement a bit.

marcosdumay2• 1 year ago

The GP is not talking about removing CO2 from the air.

Even though no, it's not as simple as they put it, plants do remove particles from the air, humidify it, and emit plenty of stuff on their own (what may or may not be good). You don't need a lot of them to have a large impact.

hinkley3• 1 year ago

Vacuums don’t capture all of the dust they stir up. When you can, vacuum with the windows open.

ctrlp• 1 year ago

I cannot wait for the day when people stop scenting their homes and offices with scented products. They smell like chemicals and cause migraines in some people. If you're doing this, please please stop.

chakintosh• 1 year ago

My air purifier was instantly showing red and running at max fan speed, it took me a while to realize that the incense i ignited is causing it to detect the extra particles in the air and spin up. Now the question is whether this is a limitation in air purifiers, their inability to distinguish inert and harmless particles from harmless ones, because all they do currently is just detect particles, not their nature.

mrtesthah• 1 year ago

What makes you think soot from incense is “harmless”?

preinheimer• 1 year ago

How sure are you that it's harmless? Campfire smoke is pretty bad for your lungs.

exabrial• 1 year ago

Yeah... I understand the intent here, but what people are going to hear is "oh car exhaust isn't that bad then".

javier_e06• 1 year ago

When we had the Canada fires months ago I bought a air quality sensor that measures among other things CO2. Right now shows 548 PPM which means good.

I once lit up one of those scented candles and the sensor fire up to over 1200 PPM.

It had a wooden wick. I think that was one of the reasons.

kylehotchkiss• 1 year ago

I use essential oils in water in an ultrasonic diffuser. Does that reduce the toxicity at all? Is the issue here mostly wax?

an_aparallel• 1 year ago

The biggest and more recent phenomena is the (at least in Sydney, Australia), the popularity of ambroxan(?) laced perfume. You can't walk into a lunchroom or walk down the street without being literally assaulted by the stuff.

I don't know what perfume makers are thinking, but this stuff makes my day unbearable at times.

I guess a chemical with super strength sillage works in the market...

Scented products cause indoor air pollution on par with car exhaust

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