INDOOR AIR SCIENCE
Computers & consumer electronics

If you’re sitting at a computer with plastic casing and a plastic circuit board, you may be sitting in front of the worst menace to human health ever.

Computer screens, TVs, and other warm consumer electronics with cabinets and circuit boards made of plastic emit chemical compounds to the air, which can be absorbed into the human bloodstream. The chemicals are flame-retardants (PBDEs), which are similar to another group of chemicals, PCBs. PCBs are currently being investigated for affecting the development of fetuses.

This information comes from a not-yet-published study from the Institute of Environmental Chemistry at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. The study reveals that flame-retardants emit gases at just 30-40 degrees Celsius (86° F - 104° F), a typical operating temperature for a PC or TV. Until now, it has been assumed that flame-retardants did not create significant emissions.

When you use a home ventilation system (for instance, when you're using a RecoupAerator®), health risks are minimized. But when your computer operates in a completely unventilated space, toxins can build and gradually accumulate in your body. The RecoupAerator® ranks #1 among energy recovery ventilators (ERVs)!

Electronic pollution
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Electronics Pollution Fact Sheet, Stirling Technology
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“Halogenated Flame Retardants — A Threat to Life,” Greenpeace
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"Allergic to Computing?"
Science News, October 2000
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“Terminal Cancer,” Dateline NBC Transcript, 1998
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“Health Issues with Flame Retarding Chemicals in Computers and Consumer Electronics,” Danish Engineering Weekly
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“Why Focus on Computers?” Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
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“Brominated Flame Retardants Should Be Phased Out as Soon as Possible,” Danish Engineering Weekly
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“Poison PCs and Toxic TVs, California’s Biggest Environmental Crisis That You’ve Never Heard Of,”
Greenstart.org, California State University, Hayward, 2001
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“Occupational Injury in the Office: Are Chemicals in Computers the Explanation for Electronic Sensitivity?” Swedish Association for the Electrosensitive
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“Mystery in the Skin: Screen Dermatitis, the Effect of Computer Work on Human Skin,” Swedish Association for the Electrosensitive