Hair Product

Smog-Fighters Focus on Glue, Hair Spray ...

Published: Sunday, 28 January 2007 16:04:37
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By Spencer Hunt, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Cars and power plants are the prime culprits behind Ohio's smog problems.

But the state's latest effort to clear the unhealthful haze from summer skies focuses on such products as hair sprays, deodorants, furniture polish, glass cleaners and even urinal cakes.

Estimates indicate that these products release about 100 tons of smog-forming chemicals into Ohio's air every day.

Throw in cars and mowers, gas stations, dry cleaners and paint, and the amount grows by more than tenfold, says the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium, which offers technical assistance on air-pollution issues to officials in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Smog can damage lungs, spurring asthma attacks and worsening lung diseases.

Faced with a federal mandate to reduce smog, environmental agencies in Ohio and several other states are thinking about ordering manufacturers to cut back on these chemicals.

"Consumer products are a significant contributor to smog," said Christopher Recchia, director of the Ozone Transport Commission, which helped draft proposed product limits for 12 eastern and northeastern states and its home base of Washington, D.C.

A manufacturers group, the Consumer Specialty Products Association, said that although it won't object to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's plan, the proposed rules won't significantly clean the air.

"You're not going to see much difference," said D. Douglas Fratz, the association's vice president of scientific and technical affairs. "We are actually a very tiny percent of (smog) generation."

Mike Koerber, director of the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium, said the new limits would reduce product pollutants to about 81 tons per day.

The chemicals, called "volatile organic compounds," along with nitrogen oxides released by cars, power plants and factories, form smog when they are cooked in the air on hot, stagnant days.

Nitrogen oxide released by factories and power plants in Ohio has dropped from a daily average of 1,015 tons in 2002 to 697 tons in 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available.

But in 2004, the U.S. EPA declared that 33 Ohio counties failed a new health standard for smog and gave Ohio until June 2009 to pass.

The Ohio EPA has since asked the U.S. EPA to take 20 counties, including Franklin, Delaware, Fairfield, Knox, Licking and Madison, off the list.

Officials said new cars that pollute less and the reduction in powerplant emissions have helped reduce smog in central Ohio and elsewhere.

And they say that a reduction in chemicals in consumer products would help keep Columbus under the smog limit and reduce unhealthful levels in Cincinnati and Cleveland.

Washington, D.C., and states including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia have proposed the same product limits, which California already enforces.

"We will ultimately be the first (state) to go ahead and implement this, other than California," said Bill Spires, a manager in the Ohio EPA's air-pollution control division.

Ohio's proposed rules, available for public comment through Monday, would make manufacturers reduce or eliminate smog-forming chemicals by January 2008.

Many of the proposed cutbacks are aimed at aerosol products -- everything from glues and engine degreasers to insecticides and hair sprays.

Koerber said the cuts would be more effective when combined with Ohio's other plans to require cleaner paints and gasoline.

"You need to package all of these reductions together," he said.

Fratz said many products sold in Ohio already meet California's standards.

"To a large degree, they are going to get the benefits of these reductions whether they adopt it or not," he said.

Ohio EPA spokeswoman Heidi Griesmer said the proposed rules would cover products sold here but not in California.

Until then, "The rest of the U.S. isn't necessarily getting the cleanest products," Griesmer said.

shunt@dispatch.com

Source: RedNova