A simple way to reduce potential toxin exposure in the home is to choose your paint carefully.
Paint is a commonly used product that may contain volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. It’s the VOCs in paint that make it smell like paint.
According to the EPA, VOCs are chemicals that are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. Some of them may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher!) than outdoors.
Ordinary interior paint used to contain higher levels of VOCs than today’s choices, but many manufacturers have reduced the levels of VOCs in their products in response to stricter federal and regional standards.
- Benjamin Moore Aura, low VOCs
- HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams (Lowe’s): low VOCs
- Benjamin Moore Natura paint: no VOCs, zero emissions, certified asthma and allergy-friendly by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America
For an excellent guide to reducing volatile organic compounds in your home, please visit: Here.
