indoor air quality Archives | Naturepedic Blog

Wellness Within Your Walls Promotes Indoor Air Quality

Nov 07 2014

I attended a wonderful webinar sponsored by the Sustainable Furnishings Council in which interior designer Jillian Pritchard Cooke spoke on the importance of better indoor air quality. She also discussed how the furnishings in a home play a part. The webinar was entitled Reducing Harmful Toxins in the Home: Combating the tight box syndrome. Tight box syndrome, also called sick building syndrome, refers to a health condition created by modern houses and offices where indoor contaminants remain circulating in in the air, trapped by the tight seals of today’s buildings like air in in a spaceship. Pritchard Cooke is a principal at design firm DES-SYN and the founder of Wellness Within Your Walls, an organization dedicated to not only reducing toxins during the interior design process but also in promoting more sustainable and responsible materials. She said she became focused on designing more eco-friendly living spaces after she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, which she suspects[…]

Is Indoor Air Quality at School Affecting Your Child’s Health or Performance?

Nov 19 2010

If you’ve been diligent about indoor air quality at home and are concerned about the air quality at your child’s school, the American Lung Association has teamed up with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to give you the tools you need to help clean it up. Why is indoor air quality an issue? According to the EPA: “Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a critical component of providing a healthy and comfortable learning environment. Indoor air pollutants may cause or contribute to short- and long-term health problems including asthma, respiratory tract infection and disease, allergic reactions, headaches, nasal congestion, eye and skin irritations, coughing, sneezing, fatigue, dizziness, and nausea. In addition, indoor air pollutants and extremes in temperature and humidity may cause discomfort, which can affect students’ ability to concentrate and learn.” Obviously, indoor air quality can have a serious effect on your child’s health, as well as their school performance. In fact, it makes you wonder how many learning disability[…]

Cleaning Baby’s Nursery Air with House Plants

Nov 17 2009

Years ago I read a book called “How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office.” The book is very informative. It covers the various factors that contribute to our poor indoor air quality – everything from the 1973 OPEC oil embargo to new materials used for building, furnishings, and so on – and tells us which plants absorb and help neutralize the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) being emitted from these materials. It’s very specific – tells you which plants are good for which compounds. I lost my copy of the book in a move, and am definitely going to get another. The link above goes to Amazon.com if you’re interested in getting one. What reminded me of this book is that I just read the results of a two-year study conducted by NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA) on house plants cleaning indoor air. They put each plant in sealed, Plexiglas[…]

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