Mad about L.A.'s air quality? Blame common products like hairspray and paint, not just cars
When it comes to air quality, the products you use to smell nice or keep your kitchen clean could do just as much damage as the car you drive. A new study of the air around Los Angeles finds that consumer and industrial products now rival tailpipe emissions as a source of harmful atmospheric pollutants.
The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, reveal a shift in the balance of polluting power in cities — one that may prompt researchers and regulators to step up their focus on a wide range of goods such as hairspray, paint and deodorant.
"As we control some of the biggest sources in the past, other sources are emerging in relative importance, such as the use of these everyday chemical products," said study leader Brian McDonald, a research chemist with the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"In some ways," he pointed out, "this is a good news story."
Air pollution is a leading cause of health problems worldwide. Exposure to ground-level ozone and particulate matter contributes to asthma, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and other serious ailments, according to the World Health Organization. A report last year in the journal Lancet ranked air pollution fifth among risk factors to human health, behind malnutrition, poor diet, high blood pressure and tobacco use.
Much of the stuff in air pollution forms from reactions with volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, a wide range of carbon-based chemicals that easily escape into the air and that humans produce in huge amounts.
In the past, car exhaust was the predominant source of those man-made VOCs. That's been especially true in Los Angeles, a freeway-laced land of long commutes that a few decades ago was wreathed in dark, heavy layers of smog.