Volatile Organic Compounds in School - Essay Example

Volatile Organic Compounds in School Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. Volatile Organic Compounds - Prevalence 4 III. Volatile Organic Compounds in Schools 6 Works Cited 9 I. Introduction This paper discusses volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in schools. Academic literature and literature from reputable agencies and institutions extensively discuss volatile organic compounds because of their toxic qualities, and because they are prevalent in the environment, as byproducts of human activity. First, by organic compounds is meant compounds that contain carbon, an element that is present in all forms of life. VOCs, as the name suggests are carbon compounds that lend themselves to becoming gases or vapors with relative ease. As such they are emitted in the surrounding environment. VOCs contain not just carbon, but a host of other common elements present in such compounds, including the following: sulfur, oxygen, hydrogen, bromine, nitrogen, fluorine (US National Library of Medicine). The relative ease with which they are released into the atmosphere is attributed to the low boiling points of VOCs, pegged at below 100 degrees Celsius, lending them to be easily released into the atmosphere as gases. Many of the VOCs in the environment are said to be manufactured by man, as chemicals that are in use in manufacturing. Paints, refrigerants, pharmaceutical chemicals, adhesives, products derived from petroleum, and several other products require VOCs for their manufacture. Most often they are located in urban areas, making up the constituents of agents for dry cleaning, thinners for paint, solvents, and different kinds of fuels (US Geological Survey) The literature further notes that in urban places, VOCs are of greater concentration, and within that urban setting, VOC concentrations are almost always of greater magnitude in enclosed indoor environments as compared to outside environments, where VOCs tend to disperse into the greater atmosphere (United States Environmental Protection Agency). Meanwhile, the adverse health effects of short-run and long-run exposure to VOCs are well documented in the literature. They include asthma symptoms being aggravated, dizziness, skin, nose, eyes and throat irritation, vomiting, cancer, impairment of the nervous system, and damage to internal organs, notably the liver and the kidney. Differing VOC types also have other specific adverse effects on human health. Benzene, a common VOC, is of special focus among health experts, for their prevalence, and for their known highly carcinogenic properties (Minnesota Department of Health; US National Library of Medicine). II. Volatile Organic Compounds - Prevalence VOCs are more prevalent than is sometimes acknowledged, owing to their presence in a wide variety of manufactured products, and the wide use of such manufactured products in urban environments. This puts an increased risk of toxic harm to human beings living in urban areas. The list in the Introduction is non-exhaustive, and to it can be added a large number of products that people may or may not already associate with VOCs: furnishings for buildings, materials for buildings, printers and copiers present in the office, copy paper not containing carbon, correction fluid, adhesives, glues, markers, solutions used in photography, pesticides, materials used for cleaning, strippers of paint, lacquers and other paints (United States Environmental Protection Agency). In the home, meanwhile, it is hard to avoid VOCs as well, largely because they are incorporated into many of the products that are vital to the maintenance of households. As already mentioned above, materials that are used to make houses contain VOCs, which later escape into the air, both indoors and into the greater outside environment. Cosmetic products of all kinds, materials used by hobbyists of all kinds, waxes, paints, and the varnishings commonly applied to home furniture all contain volatile organic compounds. Of course all sorts of fuels vital to maintaining homes all contain volatile organic compounds too. Fuels are largely made up of chemicals that are based on carbon, and are volatile. Even when they are just stored, they escape into the surrounding air, and they accumulate in indoor environments, inside houses, when the ventilation is not adequate. The rate of release of VOCs further spike when these products and materials are actually used, and inside the house, this spike in release can cause toxic buildup with negative consequences to human health, both in the short run and in the long run (United States Environmental Protection Agency). The Minnesota Department of Health, meanwhile, notes that VOC-laden products that people use or are exposed to number in the thousands, and among the more common VOCs are the following: toluene, xylene, acetone, ethylene glycol, formaldehyde, 1,3-butadiene, benzene, perchloroethylene, and methylene chloride. To the list of products with VOCs, the department includes floors made of vinyl, wood products, caulks for sealing, fabrics used for upholstery, air fresheners, ozone-producing cleaners for the air, chemicals used to clean and disinfect homes, naphthalene balls, and exhaust from vehicles left running inside garages, space heaters that are not run by electric power, newspapers, and cigarette smoke (Minnesota Department of Health) Government findings point to the special risks of VOC concentrations inside homes, with no regard to whether those homes are located in urbanized areas with high levels of industrialization, or rural locations where there is relatively less human industrial activity, This is owing to the fact that both rural and urban homes make use of the same kinds of materials and chemical products to build and maintain those homes. The EPA, in a somewhat dated study going back to 1985, found out that for a range of common volatile organic compounds, the level of concentration inside homes is about two to five times more elevated, in comparison to the levels measured outside those homes. The same findings were found to hold for homes found in rural and urban areas. Use of products that contain VOCs, meanwhile, is associated with short, high exposure to such VOCs, elevating risk levels for serious adverse health effects for those who use such VOC-laden products (United States Environmental Protection Agency). It has been noted that several factors impinge on VOC levels indoors, including outdoor VOC concentrations, indoor ventilation, indoor air volume, and VOC release rates (Minnesota Department of Health). III. Volatile Organic Compounds in Schools The preceding discussion on prevalence of VOCs might as well have also been titled VOCs in schools, because of the similarities in the kinds of products and chemicals used in homes, in offices, and in schools, which can be construed as also a kind of dwelling or office. Indeed, that schools are made of the same VOC-laden materials used in buildings and other infrastructure in general point to those being likewise being the same sources of VOCs in schools, the very buildings that make them up (Minnesota Department of Health; United States Environmental Protection Agency; US Geological Survey; US National Library of Medicine). The problem is of VOCs in schools special interest as far as schools are concerned because of the fact that children and young adults have been identified as being especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of VOCs exposure. Key to this is the fact that childrens bodies are still developing, and are more prone to adverse physiological developmental effects due to VOC exposure. Studies exist that note the rising incidence of asthma in schoolchildren in the United States over the past three decades, for example, and the hypothesis is that increased exposure to VOCs present in schools is the culprit behind the deterioration in the health of schoolchildren, with asthma cases as the proxy measure of health, during the past three decades (Air Quality Sciences Inc.). VOCs in schools have been linked in several studies to lower academic achievement, a finding that was borne out by studies that initially focused on the quality of indoor air in classrooms in the United States. Indoor Air Quality, or IAQ, has become a mainstay topic in discussions about the role that VOCs have come to play in diminished academic performance in children. As early as 1995, studies that identified as many as 15,000 schools in the US suffering from low IAQ noted symptoms in schoolchildren that are the markers of exposure to elevated and chronic levels of VOCs: infections of the respiratory tract, irritation of the eyes, throat and the nose, sleepiness, a sense of fatigue, and headaches. These symptoms, classic markers of VOC toxicity, have also been termed together as constituting what is known as “Sick Building Syndrome” or SBS (Schneider 1; Minnesota Department of Health; United States Environmental Protection Agency; US Geological Survey; US National Library of Medicine). An aspect of these studies is the noted deficiencies in air ventilation and air volume in current classrooms, an aspect borne out by the architectural decisions made when building the schools, and which have come to represent a threat to the long-term health and the academic outcomes of school children. As has been noted earlier, the concentration of VOCs in indoor setting is partly a function of the amount and quality of the ventilation in indoor spaces, as well as the overall air volume in such indoor settings. In indoor environments with both adequate ventilation and air volume, VOCs emitted into the air from various sources within the enclosed spaces are diluted and are carried out into the outside by natural ventilation dynamics. That both ventilation and air volumes are deficient because of the inherent structural defects of current schools, which limit both by design, has had the effect of increasing VOC levels in indoor classroom air, thereby adversely affecting the health and educational outcomes of school children (Schneider 1; Minnesota Department of Health; United States Environmental Protection Agency; US Geological Survey; US National Library of Medicine). Works Cited Air Quality Sciences Inc.. “New Study Links VOCs and Allergens to an Increase in Childhood Asthma”. Air Quality Sciences. n.d..9 April 2012. Minnesota Department of Health. “Volatile Organic Compounds in Your Home”. MDH/Minnesota Northstar. n.d. 9 April 2012. Schneider, Mark. “Do School Facilities Affect Academic Outcomes?”. National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities. November 2002. 9 April 2012. United States Environmental Protection Agency. “An Introduction to Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). Volatile Organic Compounds”. EPA. n.d. 9 April 2012. US Geological Survey. “Volatile Organic Compounds”. USGS Toxic Substances Hydrology Program. 10 August 2011. 9 April 2012. US National Library of Medicine. “Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)”. Tox Town. 7 March 2012..9 April 2012. Read More