It is not surprising to anyone that the air in the cities is rather polluted which is certainly not good for your health. While people find it rather hard to breath walking along a busy street, it turns out that the air at your home is even more contaminated than it is outside.
How is it even possible? Find the answer in this article!
The general contamination of air
There are many sources of air pollution outside including factories and vehicles while urban areas are virtually cleaned from forests. Unfortunately, the statistics for the level of air pollution on the Earth is rather unnerving. According to it, nine people out of ten are breathing the air which is featured by rather high level of pollution.
Even when the contamination is high, people usually fail to notice it in the air. In the majority of situations we can only feel the poor quality of air exclusively while breathing it in. Yet, if you open the window and check how much dirt is stuck there, you will be able to imagine how low is the quality of the air outside.
The problem gets even more severe if you take into consideration all of the sources of contamination you have at your home. While the pollutants are coming inside your home from the streets, they are mixed with various harmful substances you already have at home. Add a poor air circulation to it and you will understand why the air inside your home is even worse than it is outside.
Hard particles of air pollutants
One of the major identifiers of air contamination is the concentration of hard particles in it. While you can see the dust coming from various objects inside your home, there are some particles of ultra-dispersion which cannot be noticed without any special equipment. At the same time, this type of particles is the most dangerous for people.
There are two major types of such particularly small particles which are PM2.5 and PM10. The latter one is six times thinner than a hair whereas the first one is even 25 time thinner than a hair. You can imagine how small these particles are. Their size is a crucial problem since they can be absorbed by a body through the lungs.In such a way, they can get directly into the blood.
Undeniably, there is nothing good in having such particles in your blood especially because of the harmful compounds and substances they have. These particles are made of nitrates, ammoniac, sulphates and sodium chloride. There are also pieces of mineral dust and water. Where do these pollutants come from? Their major sources are ground, combustion gases as well as the roads undergoing erosion.
As you can imagine, the consequences of breathing such polluted air are rather serious. They can cause various heart diseases and trigger cancer. Even if a person is lucky not to get such serious outcomes, there is still a probability of developing migraines, depression and feeling serious decline in cognitive abilities.
Toxic gases
Toxic gases are a part of air in any city. It is rather difficult if at all possible to get rid of them since they are occurring as a result of central heating in the cities.
One of such harmful gases is ozone which is a crucial part of our atmosphere. As you know it is absolutely vital for protecting our planet against sun radiation. Yet, this happens in the highest level of the atmosphere whereas in the low proximity to the ground, this gas becomes one of the pollutants of air. That is why the highest concentration of ozone in the air is during hot sunny days. Here it is synthesised by chemical reactions in combustion gases being exposed to the sunlight.
Ozone impairs breathing functions making it rather difficult for people to breath and is actually one of the major culprits for asthma and pneumonia.
What is about your home?
Your home is literally overfilled with various contaminants which are pieces of dead skin, fur of your pets, small fibre coming from clothes and other textiles. For this reason, you will still have a house full of air pollutants even if you keep the windows at home closed all the time.
Certainly, most of these substances can be seen in the air and on the furniture as well as on other objects.
The next group of home pollutants are small parasite insects living in this dust. They prefer to stay inside pillows, blankets and matrasses and their presence in the lungs can cause allergy and asthma.
Unfortunately, even the materials used for your interior design can be rather unsafe. Various solvents, glues, polishes, plastic layers of furniture and paint have a whole range of harmful and downright dangerous substances which are getting into the air and inside one’s body. That is why the mixture of all of these pollutants can make the air at home even five time more contaminated than the air outside.