paint

Ask An Organic Mom

10 Ways to Improve Indoor Air Quality

October 16, 2008 at 12:29PM By Deirdre Dolan | comment

Paint

For many renters, ensuring that your new apartment is painted with safe, zero-VOC paint before you move in is tricky. Landlords don’t want to spend the extra money, and you have no leg to stand on in terms of getting them to. As a renter myself, I worked out a deal with my landlord-to-be when we signed the lease that I would pay the difference between the paint they would have used on our apartment, and the more expensive no-VOC brand they agreed to paint with instead.

A Daily Green reader with a young child who just moved back to New York City sent us the following question:

I just moved into a new rental apartment that was freshly painted and it smells. What should I do to get rid of the VOC's and the smell? Should I run my HEPA filter? What are the dangers of VOC's? I've been keeping windows open as much as possible and it's just the doors that were really newly painted so I'm trying not to freak out completely!

I turn to the Green Depot’s in-house expert Paul Novak for all green home-related questions. I have spoken to Paul a number of times over the years, and he is always thoughtful and helpful. He points out that very few paints/sealants/coatings are truly 100% non-toxic, but he makes it is business to identify the least toxic options out there.

For the reader’s smelly paint situation, Paul would say that she should first ...

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tags: paint, indoor air quality, air filters, hepa, zero-VOC

Remodeling? Watch Out for Lead Paint

May 10, 2008 at 5:09AM By Deirdre Dolan | comment

If you’re thinking about doing any kind of renovations in your house, obviously, lead exposure should be seriously considered. The possibility of releasing toxic dust into the air is higher in a home built before 1978 (when the government banned lead-based paint in housing), and the turn of the century brownstone I live in most certainly has a few coats of lead paint on it. We rent, so we couldn’t renovate even if we wanted to, but a new study from researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center found that interior renovation of older housing is associated with a modest increase in children’s blood lead level (BLL) and associated long-term health risks. The study’s lead author and director is Adam Spanier, M.D., Ph.D. M.P.H., from the Pediatric Environmental Health and Lead Clinic at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. His co-author Stephen Wilson, M.D., from the Pediatric Academic Society (PAS), presented his findings in Honolulu over the weekend. ...

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tags: paint, lead, health, epa, IQ, air quality, children. remodeling

Finding Nontoxic Toys

February 26, 2008 at 3:01PM By Alexandra Zissu | comment

Yes, I'm writing about toys again. And I'll probably do it again and again until there are better regulations or until so many items are tested by legit third party organizations that it becomes crystal clear what parents can feel comfortable buying and bringing home.

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