Jay Kovach ESPM 3601 Professor Robert Seavey February 11, 2013 Fit to Breathe: Making a case for

affordable, clean air in a built environment.

Introduction Midcentury, 1900s in the United States saw a housing boom. To have your own home on a postage stamp piece of property became part of the American Dream. With the industrialization of the housing industry large tracts of land were bulldozed flat and developments popped up all over like chicken-pox or some other festering illness about the skin. Passive design was briefly considered, but our rich, oil-fed nation barely gave it a nod and instead designed homes to be built in the quickest and cheapest ways possible. The 1973 oil embargo put home heating issues in the limelight and in response codes were changed and houses were insulated better. Air and water barriers protecting us and the interiors of our homes from the cold and wet came at a cost. Poisonous gases from sources we never would have considered dangerous were now trapped inside, a place we are supposed to be safe. Nature became a distant concept with our hermetic lifestyle and our choices began to make us sick but it would be a little while before someone drew a correlation between the two and decided to run some tests.

VOCs In 1984, a report by the World Health Organization suggested that up to 30% of new and remodeled buildings worldwide may be the subject of excessive complaints related to indoor air quality or IAQ, (USEPA, 1991, p.1). Pollutants impacting IAQ mainly come from within the building. Adhesives, carpeting, upholstery, manufactured wood products, copy machines, pesticides, and cleaning agents may emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including formaldehyde. Environmental tobacco smoke contributes high levels of VOCs, other toxic compounds and respirable particulate matter. Research shows that some VOCs can cause chronic and acute health effects at high concentrations, and some are known carcinogens. Low to moderate levels of multiple VOCs may also produce acute reactions. Combustion products such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide as well as respirable particles, can come from unvented kerosene and gas space heaters, woodstoves, fireplaces and gas stoves, (p.2). Or to put it more simply in the words of former NASA researcher Bill Wolverton, The newer, more energy efficient

buildings are sealed tighter and create more of a problem because chemicals offgas from practically everything in them, (Wenzel, 200, p.2). Acute exposure to high levels of VOCs can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation; headaches; nausea and/or vomiting; dizziness; and possible worsening of asthma symptoms. Chronic exposure can increase the risks of cancer, liver damage, kidney damage, and central nervous system damage (MDH, 2010, p.2). What is really frightening about this is studies have shown that the level of VOCs indoors is generally 2-5 times higher than the level of VOCs outdoors, (MDH, 2010, p.1). If that doesnt frighten you, this will put it in perspective. North Americans and Europeans, between time spent indoors and time spent in transit, spend 93% of their time in a built environment (Waite-Chuah, 2012, p. 386). Youre betting your life in a high stakes game with Cancer and Organ Failure.

Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) and Other IAQ-Related Health Concerns SBS describes situations in which building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified. Some of the indicators of SBS are: Building occupants complain of symptoms associate with acute discomfort, e.g., headache; eye, nose, or throat irritation; dry cough; dry or itchy skin; dizziness & nausea; difficulty in concentrating; fatigue; and sensitivity to odors. The cause of the symptoms is not known. Most of the complainants report relief soon after leaving the building, (USEPA, 1991, p.1).

In a commercial setting this can be especially impactful as SBS reduces worker production and may also increase absenteeism, (NSC, 2001, p. 1). Other health issues range from artistic observations to medical fact. Environmental sensory impairment is a diminished capacity for physical sensation that results when we cut ourselves off from the textures, sounds, sights, and aromas the taken-for-granted bounty provided freely from nature every day. Olfactory dysfunction and chemosensory disorders are caused by exposure to toxic substances, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), essentially turning your home from a safe haven into a dangerously unhealthy environment. Sociologist Richard Louv created the term nature-deficit disorder in 2008 to describe the issues and potential danger that come with childrens disconnect from Nature (Waite-Chuah, 2012, p. 387). Overexposure to fluorescent lights can lead to an increase of stress hormones, if there is a name for this phenomena, I havent encountered it. Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD is a psychological response linked with diminished availability of seasonal sunlight, also known as winter depression, (p. 388). A single treatment could work for both of the last two problems, sunlight, but obviously the lack of that is part of the problem so the next best thing is full-spectrum artificial lighting. You can change out all your bulbs, the bulbs in the room you use the most, or purchase a portable lamp to shine on yourself as needed. Additional bonuses beyond the lights ability to make humans produce much needed serotonin and

vitamin D3 are its ability to combat photosensitive germs and microbes and its ability to contribute to a plants photosynthesis.

The Solution Plants. They already act as air filters in Nature; the Amazon Rainforest is often called the lungs of the Earth. We already put them to work in more ways than just food and clothing. Roofs and walls are made of the living green; plants are used for privacy and windbreaks on a piece of property; we mark boundaries with them; and tree tissue has even been used for bone grafts. From universities to law firms, from the White House to your neighbors house, people all over Earth have and will continue to use plants to make their lives better. For those who see things in terms of bottom line they would be pleasantly surprised to find out that the bonuses seem to multiply themselves. Despite 2009s economic downturn the green roof industry increased 16.1%. Its not a surprise considering a report by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities said that Chicago was first in the U.S. for most square feet of green roof space at 500,000 sq. ft. GRHC President Steven W. Peck says that 10 million of the 4 billion sq. ft. replaced every year is green (Devereaux, 2010, p. 200). By 2017 the global market for green walls and roofs is projected to reach $7.7 billion annually which would be a 70% increase from 2012 levels (Devereaux, 2012, p.351). Education budgets are tight but a grade 7-12 school in Boston put plans together in 2010 to build a $6.2 million, 70,000 sq. ft. green roof which will be a fully interactive learning environment and cafeteria for students (Devereaux, 2010, p. 325-6). Ohios DOT came up with the first living sound wall, literally a million-dollar experiment. The wall should neutralize sound, runoff, and gaseous pollution from the road it runs along (Devereaux, 2010, p. 261-2). Institutions with traditionally more conservative budgeting are making room for spending time and funds on plant-tech, so why not the homeowner or the renter? NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are working together to perform plant experiments that assess the ability of vegetation to provide a complete, sustainable, dependable and economical means for human life support, (Patterson, 2012).
The ability of plants to provide a source of food and recycle CO2 into breathable oxygen may prove critical for astronauts who will live in space for months at a time. In addition, plants provide a sense of well-being. As the McMurdo Station for research in Antarctica a site that in the dead of winter resembles the space station in isolation, cramped, and hostile environment the most sought after section of the habitat is the greenhouse. ~ Barbara Patterson of NASAs Ames Research Center (2012).

It makes sense that when shut up in isolation, especially when everything is dead and covered in snow, when we are most disconnected from Nature, that we would miss it. Currently there are two basic paths one can take in implementing plants as a solution right now. The first is choosing an air purifier/filter that is also a planter. There are only a few on the market, they all run at least

$200, and they all require electricity. As with many social problems, those who could use it the most are not given access so I think, right now, the best and most affordable alternative is the second option. Houseplants without mechanical assistance can be purchased at just about any big-box store, they are still more effective than mechanical air purifiers/filters, and they are way cheaper than installing a ventilation system. A 2011 news feed mentioned retailers were realizing the marketing potential and were looking at labeling certain plants with specialized air filter packaging and information (News Hub).

The Basics Save your money and dont bother getting your IAQ tested. If the test even detects anything, the numbers are relatively arbitrary without standards to compare them to. Start with a couple of houseplants. I would recommend starting with my top three choices: Mother-In-Laws Tongue or Sansevieria laurentii, English Ivy or Hedera helix, and Golden Pothos or Epipremnum aureum. From all the research I have done these are some of the easiest to care for while simultaneously being some of the most effective at cleaning. S. laurentii is particularly interesting as it continues producing oxygen at night when other plants have switched to emitting carbon dioxide and as far as I know it is the only plant to perform in such a way. One thing that is very important is to make sure the plants foliage is not covering the soil surface, the roots need to breathe. If this is the case, remove the bottom leaves or stake the plant upwhatever you need to do to increase the soil surface areas contact with the air, it will aide in chemical absorption (Wolverton, 1989). As for how many plants you should have, 4 shoulder-high plants per person or 6-8 waist-high plants per person should do it (Meattle, 2009). To Recap Attempts to increase energy efficiency like the U.S. EnergyStar Program are really great ideas and accomplish some awesome things. EnergyStar, over the past 20 years of its existence, helped Americans save nearly $230 billion in utility bills and prevented more than 1.7 billion metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions, however, this is only part of the equation to make homes efficient and healthy (Waite-Chuah, 2012, p.388). Sealing a house makes it more efficient but it also seals in toxins like VOCs. These chemicals make people sick and can have some very serious side effects, even death. Mechanical solutions to this problem may or may not work, but they all require money and some require a lot of it. Plants are cheaper, self-propagating, and have many benefits. As to their effectiveness at cleaning the air Dr. Wolverton said, Every chemical we tested, plants could take them out, (Wenzel, 2008). I have read research on plants being able to store heavy metals and render them inert, neutralizing any human toxicity. In Sydney, Australia, the University of Technology found that levels of toxins in offices shrank by 75% with the presence of only 6 plants per room, (Wenzel, 2008). Not only do plants absorb poisons and prevent illness but people actually recover from illness faster in the presence of plants, (NASA, 2007). To make the whole deal sweeter, the longer the plants and soil microbes work on absorbing the chemicals they are exposed to, the better they get at it. So to sum it all up, in the words of Wolverton, You need plants to act as lungs in buildings.

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