Don’t Spend Too Much Time in Your Shower—You Might Get Sick

• 108 different volatile organic compounds were released from the shower curtain into the air over twenty-eight days.
• After one week, 40 different VOCs were detected in the air; after two weeks, 16 VOCS; after three weeks 11 VOCs and; after four weeks, 4 VOCs.
• The level of Total VOCs measured was over 16 times greater than the recommended guidelines for indoor air quality established by the U.S. Green Building Council, violating these guidelines for seven days.
• Just one new PVC shower curtain will release Total VOCs that exceed the typical Total VOCs residential level for four days.
• The concentration of Total VOCs in the Wal-Mart tested shower curtain was so high that the analytical equipment was saturated and further testing had to be halted so that lab equipment would not be damaged.
• All five curtains tested in phase one contained phthalates DEHP and DINP, chemicals banned in children’s toys in California, Washington, and the European Union.
• This testing did not replicate temperature and humidity conditions typically found in a shower, which would likely increase the concentrations of volatile pollutants released from a PVC curtain into the air of a bathroom; concentrations of these chemicals are likely to be even greater during and after a shower than those reported in this study. source

According to one of the study’s lead scientists, Stephen Lester, many of the VOCs emitted from the curtains have been identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as hazardous air pollutants (source). Phthalates and organitins are often used as a softening agents and evaporate or cling to household dust more easily than the chemicals in the curtains themselves (source). All in all the products are releasing a mess of air pollutants that you and I are exposed to every time we go into the bathroom or brush our teeth and this exposure is compounded when we opt for a hot shower.

Unfortunately the EPA does not have the power to regulate indoor air quality (source). According to the press release about the study, the EPA has known about the harmful properties of PVC shower curtains for many years and we have still seen no changes. PVC is the second largest commodity plastic in production in the world today; with nearly 15 billion pounds being produced annually in the U.S (source). Maybe this explains it: It’s cheap.

I already know what health risks I face by going outside, but now I’ve got to be concerned about what I’m breathing in my apartment. Another kind gift from the industrial complex, and a reason to look at my home life a little differently: Is that fresh smell seeping from my dishwasher killing me? Ignorance is bliss, or maybe just ignorance.

If you’re disturbed like me, sign this petition

Photo source: j.gresham at Flickr under a Creative Commons license