Indoor Air Pollution - A Threat to the Health of Chinese

China's accelerating urbanization is producing millions of new homes each year for the country's vast population.
Although an indication of improved living conditions, the new homes have nevertheless presented families with the serious problem of indoor air pollution.

Let's follow Yunfeng to find out the reasons behind the issue and how to address it.

According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, new buildings in China total about 2 billion square meters each year.

As part of the urbanization process, this massive construction of buildings has provided more and more common Chinese with new homes.

With their newly accumulated wealth, the country's residents cheerfully decorate about 90 million new homes each year.

But Song Guangsheng, Vice Chairman of China's National Interior Decoration Association, says the decoration process causes indoor air pollution.

"Artificial boards and paint are the most commonly used decorating materials by Chinese. You know, artificial boards are a source of the pollutant formaldehyde. As for paint and glue, they emit volatile organic compounds and benzene."

Song Guangsheng, who is also director of the National Indoor Environment Test Center, says exposure to such substances can cause health problems, like respiratory diseases, mental impairment and cancer.

When asked about the seriousness of the problem on the national level, he says no authoritative figures are available regarding how many people have been sickened or killed.

But Song cites research by the World Bank that shows more than 100,000 Chinese die from diseases related to indoor pollution each year.

As the problem has caused tragedy for many individual Chinese, he stresses that residents should be armed with effective measures to deal with indoor air pollution.

"Letting fresh air in is one of the best ways to cope with indoor air pollution. For newly-decorated houses, residents should let them ventilate for several months before moving in. Moreover, families can make use of air purifiers to clean the indoor air."

He also urges quality supervisors to strictly inspect production and delivery of decorating materials to ensure they meet relevant national environmental standards.

In recent years, serious diseases and deaths caused by indoor air pollution have been reported from time to time.
In 2006, a 4-year old girl in Fujian Province died of acute leukemia after living for ten months in her formaldehyde-polluted home.

Last year, a woman in Hubei Province was diagnosed with chronic renal failure after working in a newly-decorated office for two years. Local environmental authorities blamed the disease on excessive amounts of formaldehyde and benzene in the office.