{"id":3112,"date":"2008-06-14T11:17:20","date_gmt":"2008-06-14T17:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=3112"},"modified":"2008-06-14T11:17:20","modified_gmt":"2008-06-14T17:17:20","slug":"dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Spend Too Much Time in Your Shower\u2014You Might Get Sick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2008\/06\/showercurtainshopping.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3115\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2008\/06\/showercurtainshopping.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chej.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Center for Health, Environment &amp; Justice<\/a>, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing environmental health harms caused by chemical threats, recently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chej.org\/showercurtainreport\/documents\/VV%20national%20final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">released<\/a> a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chej.org\/showercurtainreport\/\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a> stating that shower curtains made with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Polyvinyl_chloride\" target=\"_blank\">PVC<\/a> contain numerous harmful chemicals including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/iaq\/voc.html\" target=\"_blank\">volatile organic compounds<\/a> (VOCs), phthalates (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.emaxhealth.com\/50\/23003.html\" target=\"_blank\">think CA toys<\/a>), and organotins. These ubiquitous shower curtains are likely to have adverse effects on the nervous, respiratory and reproductive systems.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t have enough hands to count the number of those shower curtains I&#8217;ve used in my brief 23 years, but it&#8217;s a lot. I&#8217;m happy to say I switched to cloth a few months ago after having a conversation about the possible effects of continued exposure to these shower curtains with my friend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.treehugger.com\/files\/2005\/02\/bio_of_john_lau_1.php\" target=\"_blank\">John Laumer<\/a> of treehugger.com. I&#8217;m glad to see our fears were not confounded. The smell you most often associate with the excitement of a new product is actually a sign of off-gassing, a process by which harmful toxins become airborne through evaporation. There should be no rejoicing when this smell is encountered.<\/p>\n<p>Some interesting findings from the study:<!--more--><\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>108 different volatile organic compounds were released from the shower curtain into the air over twenty-eight days.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>Just one new PVC shower curtain will release Total VOCs that exceed the typical Total VOCs residential level for four days.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>All five curtains tested in phase one contained phthalates DEHP and DINP, chemicals banned in children\u2019s toys in California, Washington, and the European Union.<\/li>\n<li>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. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chej.org\/showercurtainreport\/documents\/VV%20national%20final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to one of the study&#8217;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 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/features\/health\/medicine\/la-me-showercurtain13-2008jun13,0,5417857.story\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a>). 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.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately the EPA does not have the power to regulate indoor air quality (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/features\/health\/medicine\/la-me-showercurtain13-2008jun13,0,5417857.story\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a>). According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chej.org\/showercurtainreport\/documents\/VV%20national%20final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">press release<\/a> 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 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chej.org\/showercurtainreport\/documents\/VV%20national%20final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a>). Maybe this explains it: It&#8217;s cheap.<\/p>\n<p>I already know what health risks I face by going outside, but now I&#8217;ve got to be concerned about what I&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re disturbed like me, sign this <a href=\"http:\/\/salsa.democracyinaction.org\/o\/852\/t\/2088\/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1256\" target=\"_blank\">petition<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Photo source:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/j_gresham\/1025938866\/\">j.gresham at Flickr<\/a> under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/deed.en\">Creative Commons license<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Center for Health, Environment &amp; Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing environmental health harms caused by chemical threats, recently released a report stating that shower curtains made with&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":3115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,79],"tags":[865,866,867,868],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Don&#039;t Spend Too Much Time in Your Shower\u2014You Might Get Sick &#8226; Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don&#039;t Spend Too Much Time in Your Shower\u2014You Might Get Sick &#8226; Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Center for Health, Environment &amp; Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing environmental health harms caused by chemical threats, recently released a report stating that shower curtains made with&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-14T17:17:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"weatherholtz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"weatherholtz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"weatherholtz\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c9163cb07632ef4d3b1b8126a9214b03\"},\"headline\":\"Don&#8217;t Spend Too Much Time in Your Shower\u2014You Might Get Sick\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-06-14T17:17:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-06-14T17:17:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/\"},\"wordCount\":650,\"commentCount\":13,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"phthalates\",\"PVC\",\"shower curtain\",\"VOC\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Culture\",\"Products\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/dont-spend-too-much-time-in-your-shower-you-might-get-sick\/\",\"name\":\"Don't Spend Too Much Time in Your Shower\u2014You Might Get Sick &#8226; 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