This device emits unregulated toxic chemicals to the entire neighborhood when you use conventional laundry products
For more info see:
Article Summary—Chemical Emissions from Residential Dryer Vents During Use of Fragranced Laundry Products
A previous post I wrote:
Toxic chemicals in everyday laundry products!?!
During the last couple of years we’ve seen a lot of research validating what Canaries (people with chemical sensitivities) have been telling everyone for years: Everyday laundry products contain harmful toxic chemicals!
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see also
Climate change is a symptom of pollution
…Consumer products send out nearly twice as many hydrocarbons — a key precursor to ozone — as all of the SUVs and light trucks operating in California…
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That’s a clever image you’ve used there.
We don’t have that problem here much (not that I’m aware of), but when people hang their clothes on the line after washing with fabric softener it’s a problem.
I imagine that living in an apartment building with other tenants who use these dryer sheets would be awful.
Yes, it is time these unregulated chemicals were banned. Time to apply the precautionary principle to every product or chemical to be marketed. It’s the only way. Why should we have to be living proof that these things are bad?
The problem exists with line drying clothing (and bedding) too! Even in small towns… I was camping in someone’s huge backyard in a small town up north a few years ago, and a neighbor several houses away hung up their laundry. We had to leave for the day, the air was so bad.
But, I hate to start ragging on people who are line drying instead of using dryers, because environmentally it is a so much saner thing to do. Not enough people on this continent line dry.
Apartment building laundry rooms can be hell! I’ve lived downwind from several of them… major toxic emissions! And they travel great distances! I was almost felled and had trouble getting home from the park that was hundreds of feet away. Had to stop going there and gave up my dog because it wasn’t safe for me to walk her anymore, I couldn’t get across the fresh asphalt to the park, or go to the lot nearby because of the laundry… Having to give up my fur-kids was one of many sad consequences of severe MCS and lack of safe housing/resources.
Anyway…
The image was fun to create! I’ve just discovered a new tool on my photo program. I’ll be cross posting more of them between here and fb. Images seem to be the most popular way to share info there – if the article link is included with it, more people will check the article too. I’m still learning how it works, hopefully I’ll get better at it. I think if I can find good (free) images, it’ll be easier. But it’s not always easy to simplify issues and make simple slogans or statements. If you have ideas… let me know!
When it is cold you can see the steam and exhaust and how far it travels. Think I will take a video sometime when I notice laundry exhasut in the cold.
The steam disappears quite quickly, way sooner than the chemicals disperse. It can be quite helpful though, to see how much comes to your windows if a neighbors vent is close to your home.
I have a vent quite close to my kitchen window here, and while people in this building have to use unscented products, they can still use unscented Tide and Bounce, which are still full of toxic chemicals, so I can’t have that window open when they are drying their laundry. In the winter I can sometimes see it before I open the window, but in the summer I have to open and choke to know.
Sadly the chemicals can travel hundreds of feet and still be disabling to those of us who are that sensitized to the poisons in them.
I have friends who have taken photos of how far woodsmoke travels, which is another serious source of neighborhood pollution.
I have been getting woodsmoke in here almost daily. It seeps in through the cracks. The closest fireplace is over a hundred feet away, and the wind rarely comes from there, so the smoke I’m getting is from over a thousand feet away. This is the suburbs, so people don’t heat with wood, it’s strictly recreational wood-burning.
My neighbours smoke – there are so many of them and we are adjoined villas, so I can’t get away from it. Can’t have windows and doors open for fresh air. Noise and pollution dominates where I live because this family can’t restrain their bad habit. Noise from car doors banging, fumes from car left idling, blowing of the car horn as they leave – no fun at all for me.
So terrible when we can’t get clean air because of trespassing pollution.
I hope your circumstances improve soon.
If you use any dryer sheets, any fabric softeners, and any scented laundry products, this is one of the effects on your neighbors: