What is Sick Building Syndrome?
Sick building syndrome is a term used to describe a condition caused from exposure to various pollutants and indoor contaminants, consciously or unconsciously we expose ourselves to within our indoor environment - our homes and work places on a regular basis.
The condition causes you to feel generally unwell, and can ultimately affect all body systems. It has a wide variety of ailments or symptoms a susceptible person can experience, which is associated to the environment they live or work in. Symptoms generally worsen over time until the individual removes himself or herself from the particular environment.
Some researchers speculate the origin of sick building syndrome began with the energy crisis in the 1970’s, which resulted in the need to have sealed, airtight, energy efficient and cost effective buildings. Unfortunately, this reduced the recommended ventilation volume for the amount of fresh air from 20 cubic feet per minute per person to 5 cubic feet per minute per person.
The EPA (USA 2005) indicates the internal building environment is 10-90% more toxic than the external environment. Surely important when people spend over 90% of time indoors! (CSIRO, 2005)
What causes Sick Building Syndrome?
Poor indoor air quality, internal toxic emissions, toxic materials and products contained and used in our buildings, poor lighting, heating and cooling are all likely contributing factors of sick building syndrome.
Within our modern day building environment, we are exposing ourselves to an ever increasing number of toxic substances through cosmetics, cleaning products, building materials, electronic devices, and the air we breathe, even the water we are drinking. Most of these toxic substances have had little if any research fully completed on them as to the effects on human health or our environment.
Buildings that lack proper amounts of fresh air are known to contain airborne infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, volatile organic compounds, reactive chemicals, allergens, and micro-organisms at levels that cause some people to experience Sick Building Syndrome. (Lewis M)
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