IMAGE: Most indoor household dust that collects on furniture and floors actually comes from outdoors, a new study finds.
Posted on 10/28/2009 8:54:35 AM PDT by Pharmboy
IMAGE: Most indoor household dust that collects on furniture and floors actually comes from outdoors, a new study finds.
Where does it come from? Scientists in Arizona are reporting a surprising answer to that question, which has puzzled and perplexed generations of men and women confronted with layers of dust on furniture and floors. Most of indoor dust comes from outdoors. Their report is scheduled for the Nov. 1 issue of ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.
In the study, David Layton and Paloma Beamer point out that household dust consists of a potpourri that includes dead skin shed by people, fibers from carpets and upholstered furniture, and tracked-in soil and airborne particles blown in from outdoors. It can include lead, arsenic and other potentially harmful substances that migrate indoors from outside air and soil. That can be a special concern for children, who consume those substances by putting dust-contaminated toys and other objects into their mouths.
The scientists describe development and use on homes in the Midwest of a computer model that can track distribution of contaminated soil and airborne particulates into residences from outdoors. They found that over 60 percent of house dust originates outdoors. They estimated that nearly 60 percent of the arsenic in floor dust could come from arsenic in the surrounding air, with the remainder derived from tracked-in soil. The researchers point out the model could be used to evaluate methods for reducing contaminants in dust and associated human exposures.
DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/es9003735
Dust ping...
Looking at the picture included in the article, for some reason it is the few hairs mixed in with the dust that gives me the willies.
I know where the bulk of ours comes from...two long-haired Maine Coon cats.
}:-)4
I wonder how much this study cost?
Looney tune science if you ask me.
I know that when I’m outdoors I breath better than indoors.
Lot’s of other people I know say that also.
I sneezed while reading this.
We need a Dust Czar.
How did we ever survive the early years of America? What? No Febreeze?
Sometimes, the weather forecast for Baghdad is “Dust.”
A dusty ping......
I volunteer, I am an EXPERT on dust!
Based on what collects in the lint trap. I would say that most of it comes from the dryer.
Thought it was a photo of the total brain contents of the Obamaloon, his loon-o-tic cabinet, and the loon-czars.
ANOTHER MYSTERY OF THE UNIVERSE SOLVED....PING!
I can point to two guilty parties in our household as well - of course, I'd rather dust than do without my little feline lap warmers!
Our house doesn’t have dust bunnies. It has dust llamas.
I agree. I know that when ours get’s clogged there’s a lot more dust in the house, so I keep a shop vac next to the dryer, and we try to keep the filter as clean as possible.
I have a dust-colored dog, a Weimaraner, who sheds, and tracks in dirt and dust.
I am not the world's most diligent duster/vacuumer.
With those facts in mind, all baseboards in the house will be grey; most of the first floor will have a polished grey concrete floor; and other rooms will have grey carpet. I am considering painting all the interior walls grey, too.
Duh. Ask anyone who moved from a paved road neighborhood to a dirt road or drive way and you can visibly notice the difference in just a day or so. When you open your door after kicking up all the dust, it sucks it into the house.
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