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Surprising Study Blames Smog On Soaps, Paints, Other Products As Much As Cars

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For decades we've been blaming smog on what comes out of vehicle tailpipes, but stunning new research finds that consumer products like cosmetics, soaps, paints and pesticides now rival car emissions as the top source of air pollution in cities.

A study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that although 95 percent of raw oil winds up being burned in vehicle engines, the remaining five percent that is refined into chemicals for household products could be doing about the same amount of damage to our lungs and crops.

The research looked specifically at air pollution in the Los Angeles area, long thought to be choked with smog created by the region's abundant traffic. It finds that in the case of tiny, lung-damaging particles, the emissions that create them in the atmosphere come from chemical products over vehicles by a factor of two to one .

"As transportation gets cleaner, those other sources become more and more important," said NOAA scientist Brian McDonald, lead author of the study published today in Science. "The stuff we use in our everyday lives can impact air pollution."

Part of the reason for the surprising contribution from everyday products has to do with the way they're used.

"Volatile chemical products used in common solvents and personal care products are literally designed to evaporate. You wear perfume or use scented products so that you or your neighbor can enjoy the aroma," explained NOAA scientist and co-author Jessica Gilman.

McDonald estimates that 40 percent of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from things like cosmetics, soaps and paints disperse into the air where they react in the atmosphere to form the harmful pollutants .

Not surprisingly, the dangers of petroleum-based chemicals may be even more of a concern indoors.

"Concentrations are often ten times higher indoors than outdoors," said co-author Allen Goldstein from the University of California Berkeley.

The researchers say the new assessment of what we're breathing in cities shows that efforts to clean up car emissions have worked, but should now be expanded to tackle the pollutants we keep in our homes as well.

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