Tag: health

#11: Smelling Like Death

AliciaThe Problem

Another hallmark of the modern home is our attempt to make it smell fresh and pretty. Air fresheners can be seen in almost all homes, being placed in bathrooms and cabinets to cover any bodily scents and even often placed on top of ventilators in cars. Some people even attempt to substitute essential oils and other types of aromatherapy with air fresheners in order to save money (case in point, me).

 

However, lots of air freshener companies are rather vague when it comes to listing the ingredients on the back of the package, often writing only “XX fragrance” on the label (Made Safe, 2020) (below). Such non-disclosure could indicate questionable ingredients that may not be the most beneficial for users’ health.

 

 

On doing a little digging, I found a list of harmful chemicals that are routinely found in air freshener products. These include PAHs and VOCs (Steinemann, 2017; Made Safe, 2020):

  • 1,4-Diclorobenzene: This is known to reduce lung function, making one more vulnerable to respiratory disease
  • Acetaldehyde: This is a probable carcinogen.
  • Benzene: This is a known carcinogen, which also causes developmental problems in children.
  • d-Limonene: This is known to cause irritation. This substance is a sensitizer, which means it’s likely to increase the risk of future allergic reactions.
  • Formaldehyde: This is a known carcinogen.
  • Phthalates: This is associated with effects from endocrine disruption, including causing damage to the female reproductive system, as well as birth defects.

 

The amount of exposure to these chemicals is quite substantially increased as well with regular usage of air fresheners. Some studies have shown that certain electric air fresheners emit up to 17% of the Critical Exposure Limit for formaldehyde on their own (Schwartz, 2019), while other studies showed much larger emissions, up to 40% of the Critical Exposure Limit (Steinemann, 2017). This exposure is magnified when you consider using other potential emitters like cleaning agents and aerosol sprays simultaneously. Glade, a popular brand of air freshener in Singapore, produces scented oils which emit 4.5 parts per million of Phthalates (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2007). This moderate exposure, when combined with other indoor air polluters, can mean significant daily exposure to Phthalates.

 

Even in lower quantities, these emissions should not be considered ‘completely safe’ because we use tons of chemicals in our homes. These emissions could cause much worse compounded effects on our health than we may realise. Now that you know about the possible harmful pollutants in air fresheners, you can either opt to chuck them out for good or do more research into the brands that you consume before you buy them.

 

Author: Alicia Tiu

 

References:

Made Safe. (2020, February 21). Toxic Chemicals in Air Fresheners Lead to Indoor Air Pollution. Retrieved July 19, 2020, from https://www.madesafe.org/toxic-chemicals-in-air-fresheners/

Natural Resources Defense Council. (2007). Protect Your Family from the Hidden Hazards in Air Fresheners Retrieved July 19, 2020, from https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/fairfresheners.pdf

Schwartz, S. (2019, October 29). Your air freshener may be harmful to your health. Retrieved July 19, 2020, from https://www.considerable.com/home/cleaning-organizing/are-air-fresheners-bad-for-you/

Steinemann, A. (2017). Ten questions concerning air fresheners and indoor built environments. Building and Environment, 111, 279-284. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2016.11.009

#10: The Dark Side to Singapore’s Light Pollution

madeleineshutlerThe Problem

Why is it so difficult to see stars in Singapore? 

Light pollution affects 80% of the globe, and has intensified in the past century given technological advances and the fast-paced globalised century we live in, where economic and social ventures do not pause even at night. It is not surprising then, that Singapore, a global hub, ranks first in light pollution (Panko, 2016) (Figure 1). Here, light pollution refers to “the inappropriate or excessive use of artificial light” (Drake, 2019), as defined by the International Dark-Sky Association (Figure 2). 

 

Figures 1 and 2: Light Pollution (Source: National Geographic)

 

In many countries, including Singapore, light is seen as a proxy for development, reflective of the nightscape many of us picture when we imagine major global cities. 

 

Figures 3 and 4: The Nightscapes of Shanghai, Singapore and New York City respectively (Source: Unsplash) 

 

Edelson (2017) argues that illuminated nightscapes have become a criteria upon which global cities compete for world recognition. The ‘LED-ification’ of major world buildings, such as the Empire State Building, tie the city’s nightscape to ideas such as full maximisation of a buildings energy and power even at night, artistry and theatrical design that incites intrigue and excitement, and new vibrant visual identity. Such ideas and branding can be powerful as seen by New York City’s age old nickname – ‘the city that never sleeps’, placing the city on the economic and social capital world map. Singapore has also embraced such economic and social ventures linked to the lighting up of night through the following developments (Koh, 2018):

 

  1. Brightly lit streets at night – The Land Transport Authority actively maintains the over 95, 000 streetlights, lighting of bus stops, linkways and road crossings. 
  2. The Rejuvenation of the Central Business District – In a bid to create new public spaces, street lighting of the CBD and Civic District was to be increased, bringing life and vibrancy back into the ghost town that it becomes at night. 
  3. Night Events and Activities – The launch of many leisure activities that primarily take place at night, including the Singapore Night Festival and the i Light Singapore art installations. 

 

The vibrant nightscape that Singapore has developed over the years, answers the questions of why many Singaporeans grow up without seeing many stars in the sky. It is now more relevant than ever to begin to question, beyond the value of green spaces in Singapore, should equal importance be placed on conserving “dark spaces”? 

Chepesiuk (2009) argues that light pollution has numerous health and environmental effects that drive the need to control and regulate excessive lighting. For the former, exposure to artificial light at night (ALAN) disrupts the natural 24-hour day to night cycle (circadian clock), thereby affecting critical processes such as hormone production, brain wave patterns, and cell regulation that are tied to this natural rhythm. This can lead to a slew of medical disorders including cardiovascular disease, obesity, cancer, insomnia, mood disorders and delayed sleep-phase syndrome. Such a condition such as delayed sleep-phase syndrome, referring to the condition whereby one sleeps very late at night and experiences difficulty in waking up for day engagements, is extremely alarming as many do not realise they experience it due to its prevalence in society today and lack of awareness surrounding it.

For environmental impacts, Chepesiuk (2009) documents how light pollution affects flora and tree species from adjusting to variations in season and temperature accurately, and can negatively change the migratory and breeding cycles, general behaviours, foraging and hatching areas for turtles, birds, reptiles and insects. Prominently, tens of thousands of migratory birds are killed annually in New York City, killed crashing into high-rise buildings after blinded by bright ALAN. When one considers such a number multiplied across major cities worldwide that likely experience the same situations, and once again multiplied for the foreseeable future, such a statistic is extremely alarming in regards to long term ecological impact. Perhaps once and for all, it is time we switch off some lights. 

 

Author: Madeleine Shutler

 

References 

Chepesiuk, R. (2009). Missing the Dark: Health Effects of Light Pollution. Environmental Health Perspectives, 117(1), A20-A27. doi:10.1289/ehp.117-a20 

Drake, N. (2019, April 3). Our nights are getting brighter, and Earth is paying the price. Retrieved from 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/nights-are-getting-brighter-earth-paying-the -price-light-pollution-dark-skies/ 

Edelson, Z. (2017, November 06). How LEDs Will Make Or Break The Skylines Of Global Cities – Architizer Journal. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://architizer.com/blog/practice/details/how-leds-will-make-or-break-the-skylines-of-global-cities/ 

Koh, M. (2018, February 26). Light Pollution in Singapore – Is Public Lighting a Boon or Bane? Retrieved July 18, 2020, from 

https://thateconstutor.com/2018/02/20/light-pollution-singapore-public-lighting-boon-bane/ 

Panko, B. (2016, June 10). Nighttime light pollution covers nearly 80% of the globe.

 

#3: Why we need a Pollution Revolution

madeleineshutlerThe Problem

It is very easy for us to shrug off our role in contributing pollutants into human environments, especially if those environmental costs are being hidden under our noses. However, even if we do not want to believe in the impacts of pollution issues, we may not have much choice. Especially not if our own lives or the lives of our loved ones are threatened as well. Here are several reasons why it is so important to address Environmental Pollution. 

 

1. It Impacts our Health  

 

  Source: Fred Rivett

 

Environmental pollution can have a direct effect on humans through physical contact or direct inhalation of toxins and pollutants. Examples of the latter include China’s smog and South Korea’s fine dust pollution that residents deal with almost daily. Another prominent example is the annual South East Asian Haze, a transnational air pollution crisis that affects people in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and so on. In the 2013 SEA Haze event, the PM2.5 concentration in Singapore at its highest was equivalent to passively smoking 150 cigarettes (Van der Zee et al., 2016). Such direct exposure to the pollutants can impact human health greatly, causing short term respiratory illnesses or gastro-intestinal and skin related conditions. In the long term, it can lower our immune systems and increase our risk of contracting cardio-vascular and respiratory illnesses. Notably, Xiao Wu et al (2020) found that previous exposure to PM2.5 was associated with “an 8% increase in the COVID-19 death rate), highlighting that pollution can indeed have unexpected and long term impacts on our health. 

 

However, exposure to toxins and chemicals can also be in a more insidious and unexpected form – through our food and water, the very essentials that are supposed to maintain and improve our health. The pollution transfer continuum and bioaccumulation are two concepts that explain why this impact occurs. 

 

The Pollution Transfer Continuum is a timeline of pollution from source to sink, highlighting the overall large and complex reach and impact it can have. It is based on a study on The Phosphorus Transfer Continuum by (Haygarth et al., 2005; Withers and Haygarth, 2007) and is outlined in the figure below. 

 

The Pollution Transfer Continuum

 

An important takeaway from this continuum is that pollutants can often be mobilised and transported to new environments far from their original source. In this way, they can easily enter surface or subsurface water bodies or agricultural areas, potentially contaminating water sources for locals (for example, read more on India’s Arsenic Groundwater issue) or entering the food chain through the body of organisms that are exposed to the pollutants (through the water, soil or their own contaminated food supply). Bioaccumulation can then occur with the gradual accumulation of the toxin in organisms along the food chain (Chojnacka & Mikulewicz, 2014), eventually appearing in higher levels when consumed by humans, with various poisonous effects. 

 

2. The Longevity and Spread of Pollutants 

The chemistry and original purpose of pollutants often result in them having long half-lives, meaning they can exist in the environment for long periods of time. This entails that new human activity could catalyse a string of events that disrupts the natural chemical balance, leading to the release or chemical transformation of the once buried or neutral pollutants. This is particularly a problem in the Arctic (Morello, 2011), where global warming is triggering the release of toxins once trapped in its ice and snow. 

 

An added layer to such issues, is that the pollutants can also travel long distances, far from its original source, potentially turning into transboundary crises that are complex and difficult to navigate. Air pollution, as seen in the previous example of the South East Asia Haze event, can rapidly spread throughout a whole region, and aquatic pollution can become a geopolitical issue, with disproportionate effects on upstream and downstream countries should a river and watershed cross national boundaries (for example, see the Mekong River’s transboundary heavy metal pollution). 

 

3. It Exacerbates Existing Problems 

As mentioned above, environmental pollution can very easily heighten geopolitical tensions in the case of transboundary pollution. Furthermore, in recent years, the disproportionate pattern of waste and in turn pollution, has become prominent in activism movements. Statistics and case studies have shown that the richest countries and people in the world contribute the most to emissions and waste and yet the poorest experience the effects of such waste:

 

Source: The Guardian

 

  • E-waste is often exported from developed countries, dumped and burned in less developed countries such as Africa and India (Minter, 2016). 
  • Pollution from transnational corporation-run factories in less developed countries are dumped into local rivers, contaminating rural water and food supplies.
  • Environmental Racism jarringly highlights how the poor, rural and discriminated are targeted for waste and pollutant dumping sites – 70% of these in America are built near low-income and African American neighbourhoods (Bergman, 2019)  In Canada, indigenous communities are protesting against the TransMountain pipeline which would cut across and potentially pollute indigenous lands (Cecco, 2019). 

 

These are just a few of the reasons that make environmental pollution such a pressing and significant area of concern and as such, warrants even greater governmental, private enterprise and social action to prevent and counter it.  

 

Author: Madeleine Shutler

 

References 

Bergman, M. (2019, March 08). ‘They chose us because we were rural and poor’: When environmental racism and climate change collide. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/08/climate-changed-racism-environment-south 

Cecco, L. (2019, January 11). Pipeline battle puts focus on Canada’s disputed right to use indigenous land. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/11/canada-pipeline-indigenous-trudeau-treaty 

Chakraborti, D., Singh, S. K., Rahman, M. M., Dutta, R. N., Mukherjee, S. C., Pati, S., & Kar, P. B. (2018). Groundwater Arsenic Contamination in the Ganga River Basin: A Future Health Danger. International journal of environmental research and public health, 15(2), 180. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15020180

Chojnacka, K., & Mikulewicz, M. (2014). Bioaccumulation. Encyclopedia of Toxicology, 3rd ser., 456-460. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386454-3.01039-3

Forber, Kirsty & Withers, Paul & Ockenden, Mary & Haygarth, P.. (2018). The Phosphorus Transfer Continuum: A Framework for Exploring Effects of Climate Change. ael. 3. 10.2134/ael2018.06.0036.  

Fu, Kaidao & Su, Bin & He, Daming & Lu, XiXi & Song, Jingyi & Huang, Jiangcheng. (2012). Pollution assessment of heavy metals along the Mekong River and dam effects. Journal of Geographical Sciences. 22. 10.1007/s11442-012-0969-3. 

Minter, A. (2016, January 13). The Burning Truth Behind an E-Waste Dump in Africa. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-truth-behind-e-waste-dump-africa-180957597/

Morello, L. (2011, July 25). Climate Change Remobilizes Long Buried Pollution as Arctic Ice Melts. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-remobilizes-buried-pollution-as-arctic-ice-melts/

The Guardian. (2017, July 04). Is inequality bad for the environment? Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jul/04/is-inequality-bad-for-the-environment 

Van der Zee, S., Fischer, P., & Hoek, G. (2016.). Air pollution in perspective: Health risks of air pollution expressed in equivalent numbers of passively smoked cigarettes. Elsevier, 148, 475-483. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2016.04.001 

Xiao Wu, Nethery, R. C., Sabath, M., Braun, D., & Dominici, F. (2020). Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: A nationwide cross-sectional study.