Wall to Wall
Sweeping Toxins Under the Rug
Carpets can be reservoirs for chemicals

The wall-to-wall carpeting in your house may actually act like a sponge that absorbs harmful chemicals. Environmental engineer John Roberts says that dust extracted from a typical 10-year-old carpet may have concentrations of toxins high enough to qualify as hazardous waste. Wood and vinyl flooring -- even plain concrete -- may be safer, he says
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Carpets collect dust tracked in on shoes or on the feet of pets. They can also absorb airborne chemicals from tobacco smoke, pollution or aerosols produced during cooking. Harmful substances that collect there include lead, cadmium, mercury, pesticides and carcinogenic compounds.

The Guardian explains that young children may be most at risk from exposure to toxins that collect in carpeting because they spend a great deal of time playing on the floor. Children are also known to be more sensitive to certain toxins like lead and mercury because their bodies are still developing. HealthScout recently described how some health experts suspect that carpeting in schools contributes to childhood allergies.

One European study also showed that homes with plenty of soft or textured surfaces collect more airborne benzene -- a risk factor for leukemia. The science journal Nature has the details.

Bare floors 'safer than carpets'

Loft-dwelling urbanites who have abandoned wall-to-wall shagpile for bare floorboards or concrete appear to have made the right choice on medical grounds.

Carpets could be killing us because they harbour toxins at levels far higher than those found on polluted city streets, environmental engineers in the US have warned. The concentration of pollutants is up to 10 times higher in homes than outdoors.

"If truckloads of dust with the same concentration of toxic chemicals as is found in most carpets were deposited outside, these locations would be considered hazardous waste dumps," said John Roberts, who has studied the problem for nearly 20 years.

He has found that on average a 10-year-old carpet will contain 2lb (900g) of dust, much of it made up of dangerous substances, including heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury, pesticides, and carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs).

"The carpet is the largest reservoir of dust in a house, so that a house with bare floors and a few area rugs will have about one-tenth of the dust found in a house with wall-to-wall carpet," Mr Roberts said.

Contaminants are brought in on on pets' paws or on shoes and become trapped deep in carpet fibers.

Cigarette smoke, cooking fumes, dust mites, mould and residues of solvents on dry cleaned clothes all exacerbate the problem. Attempts to clean the house can make matters worse because of the chemicals in cleaning products.

Britons are particularly at risk because of their fondness for Axminsters and Wiltons and because 90% of their homes are carpeted.

Children are worst affected because they often play on the floor and then put their hands in their mouths. They inhale 23 times as much air as adults, weight for weight, and can be damaged by even low levels of toxins. US studies have suggested that the average infant ingests 110 nanograms a day of the PAH benzopyrene - the equivalent of three cigarettes.

• Long-term exposure to increased levels of airborne pollution could shorten people's lives by up to six months, a report by the committee on the medical effects of air pollutants said yesterday. The report, based on US research, shows that residents of cleaner cities live longer than their peers in dirty ones