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Cleaner air for you
has found that short-term exposure to low levels of ozone causes reduced lung function, lung elasticity, lung capacity, and inhibits the development of lung tissue in children. Long-term exposure to low levels of ozone, as shown through animal studies, has shown permanent scarring of lung tissue, permanent loss of lung elasticity, and permanent loss of lung function. “When you walk outside after a lightning storm, people tend to equate that smell with freshness, it’s almost a bleach smell in the air. Well, after a lightning storm, that is how ozone is formed. It is a toxic gas, it’s very unstable. A lot of people like to call it ‘energized oxygen’ or ‘activated oxygen’, it’s not. It’s a toxic chemical which is very unstable. Unstable molecules destroy tissues. Well, that fresh and clean smell is what an ozone generator smells like. So people think, ‘Gee, this thing is working great because my air smells so good.’ Well, it is masking odors. The EPA has a great document on it on its website.” He adds that it’s illegal to take an ozone-producing device into a hospital or where the infirm are under FDA regulations and that ozone generators have been outlawed in Canada. Ionizers: “With an ionizer, you have charged particles. Every particle floating around in the air has a charge. Ionizers shoot out all kinds of charged particles into the air which find oppositely charged particles and they attach to them. Eventually, when enough of these particles attach to each other, they fall out of the air. It does work, but it tends to work on the larger particles and not so much on the smallest, most respirable particles. Also, when you’re using an ionizer, the particles are merely falling, although some of them [machines] will have what they call ‘collection plates’, some dirt will collect on the plates, but most of the dirt is going to fall on the carpet, a chair, the wall, or something that’s close to the ionizer. In fact, if you look at a place where an ionizer has been running for a long time, you’ll see a dirty spot around it. Well, that dirt can be released back into the atmosphere. You’re not truly getting it out of the environment. This is partially the principle of the Sharper Image machine.” Brown mentions that Sharper Image’s Ionic Breeze, has been tested by Consumer Report every year for several years and has shown that it produces ozone as a by-product. “They tell you that it removes harmful chemicals from your home like butyl acetate,” says Brown. “It’s one of the few chemicals that low levels of ozone have been shown to interact with, but ozone has no effect on the primary chemicals in our home. They talk about removing pet dander, dust, other allergens, and whatnot from the air. “We’ve tested the Sharper Image machine with particulate counters. With a HEPA machine, we expect to see a 90-95% reduction in particle counts. With the Sharper Image machine, we see particle counts increase. There are some reasons that that’s happening, but the fact is the machine is going to collect some dirt. I tell people that if you set a dish in the corner of the room and go back and check it an hour later, it will have collected some dirt. The basic theory of the Ionic Breeze is they have charge plates, air flow moves through them, and the particles stick to the charged plates. You pull out the charge plates and wipe them off. Well, that will work to a degree, except that you don’t have enough airflow to truly collect enough particles. Once that particle is coating that surface, you’ve lost effectiveness. They do collect particles, but it is a very ineffective way to collect them.” UV light: “Lots of companies advertise UV light and how you can install it in your home air conditioner to remove all of these harmful things from the air stream. It’s not the way UV light works. UV light, by the way, is effective, it |
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