What is in the dust inside your carpets?

Dust is a fine heterogeneous mixture of organic and inorganic materials composed of animal fibers, vegetable fibers, pollen, silica, silt, clay, bacteria and fungi.  Indoor environments typically accumulate large quantities of dust, particularly in carpets.

Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) or indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is typically associated with contaminated air, and samples are collected accordingly, often yielding potentially false negative results.  Air analyses, unfortunately yield only a single snapshot in time.  In sharp contrast, dust acts as a concentrator for many chemical and biological pollutants.  Even when indoor contaminants are undetectable in the air, they may be at significant levels in dust.  For example, the quantity of lead per square meter of carpet appears to be the single best predictor for blood lead levels in toddlers.  The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ASTDR) estimates that 17% of pre-school children in the United States suffer from reduced learning ability as a result of lead intake.  Young children ingest lead in floor dust through frequent hand-to mouth contact.  In fact, one study reported that children ingest 0.1 to 0.5 grams of dust per day.  The necessity of monitoring and controlling toxic compounds in air, water and food is largely accepted and well documented.  However, traditional risk models for these routes cannot predict the toxicology of floor dust.

Other toxic and carcinogenic contaminants that are frequently found or linked with indoor floor dust include, benzo(a)pyrene, chlordane and other pesticides, 2,4-D, cadmium, mycotoxins, endotoxins, dust mites, pet allergens, allergenic and toxigenic fungi.

A 1998 Scientific American article, titled "Everyday Exposure to Toxic Pollutants", stated "If truckloads of dust with the same concentration of toxic chemicals as is found inside most carpets were deposited outside, these locations would be considered hazardous waste dumps."  Floor dust may be the next smoking gun in indoor environments..

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