Cigarette smokers, nail polish buyers, and eager home fixer-uppers; you might want to listen up. The air in you house could be swimming with dangerous chemicals that cause dizziness, headaches, compromise your immune system, and even eventually lead to cancer.
While outdoor air contains low levels of benzene from motor vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, it can be found in higher levels indoors. It comes from products like glue, paint, furniture wax, detergents and cigarette smoke. Benzene can cause long-term effects on bone marrow, with a decrease in red blood cells leading to anemia, and eventually leukemia. It can also compromise the immune system.
Advertisement
Formaldehyde can make its way into the home by way of pressed wood products like particle board for your floor, or hardwood plywood paneling on the wall or in furniture. It's also used on durable press drapes and other textiles, glues, and in tobacco smoke. Formaldehyde is suspected to cause cancer in humans.
Trichloroethylene, while mostly used in industrial settings, can be found in paint removers and strippers, adhesives, spot removers, and rug-cleaning fluid. It's another proven carcinogen, and has been loosely linked to miscarriages, though not conclusively.
Xylene can be found in cigarette smoke, paint removers, varnish, shellac, and rust preventatives. At low levels xylene can cause dizziness, confusion, lack of muscle coordination, and headaches.
If you do your nails or spray yourself with perfume often, you should be aware of toluene. It's not only found in nail polishes. It's used in the production of plastic soda bottles, pharmaceuticals and dyes, and like all the other chemicals, cigarette smoke. Toluene can cause central nervous system dysfunction and unconsciousness, and cardiac arrhythmia.
Advertisement
To combat these sneaky chemicals in your everyday products, we've plumbed NASA's list of air-filtering plants to bring you the most effective. We wouldn't say this neutralizes the effects of second-hand smoke, but if you're addicted to doing your toes every week in fire engine red, you might want to consider some of these potted plants as a natural antidote to some or all of these five chemicals.
Air Filtering Plants
[Note: we've taken out the areca palm. It's a good filterer of xylene and toluene, but unfortunately we couldn't find an accurate picture for you.]
Support HuffPost
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
Your Loyalty Means The World To Us
At HuffPost, we believe that everyone needs high-quality journalism, but we understand that not everyone can afford to pay for expensive news subscriptions. That is why we are committed to providing deeply reported, carefully fact-checked news that is freely accessible to everyone.
Whether you come to HuffPost for updates on the 2024 presidential race, hard-hitting investigations into critical issues facing our country today, or trending stories that make you laugh, we appreciate you. The truth is, news costs money to produce, and we are proud that we have never put our stories behind an expensive paywall.
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. Would you consider becoming a regular HuffPost contributor?
Dear HuffPost Reader
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. If circumstances have changed since you last contributed, we hope you’ll consider contributing to HuffPost once more.