Despite the best efforts of environmentalists and the United States Environmental Protection Agency; the very stuff that we breathe in any large city is rarely totally clean and can often be unhealthy. There are still automotive exhaust fumes along with solid particulates that can range from plain old natural dirt dust to the incompletely burnt solid particulates from furnaces and factories. Furthermore, fungus spores and other natural micro-organisms will also be blowing in the wind. The best we can do is to try to control the purity to within what we call “acceptable levels” of pollution.
Some industries (such as computer chip manufacture or pharmaceutical plants) have to go to great lengths to construct special clean room environments to ensure the pure air that their processes require. But, the rest of us; in both our places of work and our homes, cannot afford such extremes – despite the fact that the EPA advises that most of what we breath indoors is even less healthy than that inhaled out of doors.
But, My Home Is “Spotless” & So Is My Workplace
Unfortunately, when it comes to the purity of our atmosphere, most of the pollutants are of microscopic size and only become visible when they accumulate or breed in quantity. This means that they won’t be building up on our frequently polished table but could well be hiding away in places like the pile of your carpet and (especially) in those passageways hidden within walls under floors or below ceilings that we use for ventilation, cooling and heating the whole building from a central air conditioning unit.
Sick Building Syndrome
What the plant sucks in may well be filtered but, in general, this will be nowhere near the total filtration of a clean room and much will get through the average filter to be blown around the system and vented out into individual populated parts of the building. The World Health Organization has indicated that quite a large number of today’s buildings suffer from what they call “sick building syndrome” that is often induced by contamination within their heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.
Even in our homes, it is best for our health if we keep these ductings free of contaminates; but, this is not a job that we can easily undertake for ourselves.
