Inhalation of Volatiles

I am trying to reduce the number of volatile emitting materials around home owing to only having one lung and copd in the one that is left. Oh, and definitely trying to reduce/remove carcinogens in the atmosphere - i don't need the cancer to return (Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma).

For me, this means rehousing some things like the computer, radio etc into pure wooden cases. Also replacing particle board and mdf materials with none formaldehyde gas emitting materials.

Does anyone know of any lists of things to avoid?

Also, if mdf and particle board are on my hit list, what about plywood and burnie board would they be ok to use or do they all use noxious adhesives?

As for finishes - raw wood with beeswax polish? I seem to recall seeing avoiding using natural turps somewhere on this site. The interesting thing about chemo is that it seems to permanently bugger up me immune system so i have nice allergies to love (who thought up that idea - love your illness?).

Advice and recommendations sought ( given some of the senses of humour around here - not all the recommendations will necessarily be acted upon).

I have this urge to chuck away my new vacuum cleaners plastic case and replace it with a wooden one (that would look cool). I wonder if they thought of the volatiles being emitted by plastics when they were fitting the cleaner with a HEPA filter? Ironic?

Anyway, my little house is going to have lots of plain wood (not blackwood darn it) - must look up all about Shaker furniture and quasi-Shaker furniture - lovely elegant in its simplicity.

My condolences Tashammer,
My lungs aren't great these days and also seem to be allergic to everything (but nothing I can identify). Don't know if it was the fags, silicon dust, uranium oxide, treated pine dust, etc etc just a lifetime of living.
Anyway you seem to be miles ahead of me as far as awareness of sources of formaldahyde and plastics - are they all bad ar are some more volitile than others?
I did some research the other day on fire retardants after a mention in a another thread. These are another form of gas in the house that probably should be avoided.
You may have to get rid of the foam furniture and go for wood and the mattress too come to think of it- maybe a bed of nails.
Cheers and good luck.
Tony

i don't know if they are all bad and what levels are sustainable. Trying to find out is fairly hard and i am slowly coming around to the notion that it may be best to stay as natural as possible with most stuff.

Weird, innit, that stuff that is now called "greeny" is how most folks lived anyway and many still do.

Really odd is the huge price of handmade furniture so only the wealthy can afford to buy it, when it was the poor who had to manage with the handmade stuff.

I suppose if i had had a thunk about it, there are all these opportunities for returning wood back to the house but we say ohhh look at that nice new plastic case. I think it's because folks have gotten used to the ease of casting in plastic, though it aint cheap.

Oh, i still count me blessings, i am not like some of those folks who have to go live on an island because they are "allergic to the 20th and 21st Centuries". Though i don't necessarily think they are worse off except in a social sense.

Getting back to picking plastics - try going into Supa Cheap Auto's, the stench of cheap platic nearly knocks you flat on yer back. The there are those 10 for a $1 products such as garden hose fittings that you leave outside for a week and they crumble. They might be good for getting folks to say, 'Oh, i'll get some more, they were cheap enough". But all the stuff that evaporates into the air in your house/workshop/place of work/car is what you are breathing in.

Hey, the "new car smell" is you breathing in the volatiles as the plastics are already starting to break down. And folks are presenting it as a good feature. Sigh.

I think the big thing is finding out all about the unnatural man-made timber articles and what adhesives are used in their manufacture. Just think of kneeling down to get to the back of the lowest cupboard which doesn't get any air flow and the formaldehyde has been seeping out of that lovely looking melamine topped chipboard; you are in the cupboard wondering what killed the ants as you no longer use spray. The you get dizzy. Try to slide out. Bang your head. Maybe even knock yourself out and keep right on breathing the gases in there. What do you think would happen?

The trouble with a lot of this stuff is that i reckon folks don't have a clue of what it emits - i am talking about the makers here. A lot of times some bright spark will come along with a brand new whizzbang product. Needless to say the stuff hasn't been around long enough to do some long term testing so how does anyone know?

Well, we know a lot more about urea-formaldehyde resins and adhesives but we aren't stopping using them - bit of greed and inconvenience here, not to mention, "Hey, prove it". They used that and delaying tactics on the blokes suffering from mesothelioma until the blokes died off.

Nah, i aint been studying it as such, just paying a bit more attention. Besides which i would like a Hobbit house or a sealed Coober Pedy tunnel house. And have you seen how moulds seem to love man-made materials? Those are the last things i need to breathe.

I have this notion that the laws ought to be modified so that any new AND existing makers have to prove that the products they wish to mass produce or import do no harm. The onus ought to be on them as they wish to exploit us.

The idea of use it until we find out if it is dangerous is great if you like thalidomide babies and impaired adults. How many folks died using those sleeper cutters? Or in factories before they started using guards on the machinery?

And still we do it and not just the big companies...

"Hey?"
"What?"
"Where is Joe?"
"Oh, didn't you hear?"
"Hear what?"
"He died".
"What!"
"Yeah, he had been breathing in all this spalted wood dust or blackwood dust or eating some prawns he reckoned were ok".

Yeah I agree however the dangers that we are facing today are unseen dangers from toxic substances in the environment, including the food we eat. It took Hardies 40 years to stop using Asbestos after they found out the dangers. How long would it take other industries to clean up their products when the longterm health effects are far less obvious.

This is clearly a case when the Government has to take the lead - you can not leave it to industry self regulation. Unfortunatly it seems that there is so much lobbying of the government by industry trying to protect their shareholders (profits) - that what you would think of as common sense ie protecting the health of the population seems to take a back seat. Its a sick world ... and getting sicker

My commisserations Tashammer.
I just take it for granted that "she'll be right". Probably stupid of me.
I'll watch with interest to see what you turn up.

Hi all. . .
Well I read on an Australian Wood info site that nearly all woods/timbers are carcinogenic...
So I donno about chucking all the plastic out and replacing it with wood...
Just my tuppence-worth. . .
Jedo

My suggestion, take it or leave it. Set yourself up with a GOOD dust extraction system and also an air filtration system AND get a decent mask. Whether that mask be a catridge filter mask (cheap) or an airshield style mask is up to you. Put the mask on before going in the shed and take it off once you leave and then it doesn't matter what you cut.

All the best,

Dan

If you were serious you would considering moving to the windward side of Launceston. The air in cities and large towns are full of the stuff you refer to so no matter what you do in your house you are swamped by the stuff from everywhere else.

An even cleaner place is Cape Grim. It is one of the cleanest air places in the non-polar regions on the planet since it cops most of it's air from Antarctica. Pity it's so windy and bleak.

However before you consider this you should remember that on average Australians that live in the country still have a shorter average lifespan than those that live in cities.