The HIDDEN DANGER of parking lots, driveways and playgrounds...

I bet many of you didn't know about this:

Studies: Health risk from toxic pavement sealant greater than previously believed

When you think of pollution, you might picture an industrial center like Camden, N.J., or Jersey City. But new research shows that when it comes to a potent class of cancer-causing toxic chemicals, many American parking lots are a lot worse.

New studies paint an increasingly alarming picture – particularly for young children – about how these chemicals are being spread across big swaths of American cities and suburbs by what may seem an unlikely source – a type of asphalt sealer. These sealants are derived from an industrial waste, coal tar.

...

The new research, published in peer-reviewed science journals, focuses on a class of chemicals found in coal tar and known as “polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” or PAHs. Previously, researchers believed that people’s exposure to PAHs came primarily through food, which contains trace amounts produced primarily from smoking food or cooking it at high temperatures in practices such as grilling, roasting, and frying. PAHS are produced when any organic matter burns.

The new research shows:

- It appears that children – especially those from 3 to 5 years old – living by coal tar-sealed parking lots and driveways are getting a bigger dose of PAHs from house dust than from their food. The kids who put their hands in their mouth most often are likely receiving 9 ½ times more exposure through house dust than through food...That’s just from the house dust. When the kids are outside in the yard or playing on coal tar-sealed pavement, they likely are picking up much larger doses.

- While researchers previously theorized that airborne PAHs come mostly from power plants, factories and cars’ and trucks’ tailpipe emissions, U.S. Geological Survey researchers measured large amounts vaporizing into the air off coal tar-sealed parking lots. The concentrations coming off parking lots in suburban Austin, where the researchers are based, were higher than in centers of heavy industry, including Jersey City and Camden, N.J.; Chicago; London and Manchester, England; and Guangzhou, China...

- Concentrations measured four feet above the coal tar-sealed lots in some cases exceeded health-protection guidelines recommended by a European Union science panel to protect against cancer. The United States has no similar guidelines.

- Extrapolating from the 85 million gallons of coal tar sealants laid down annually and the out-gassing rates measured in Austin, Geological Survey researchers calculated that nationwide, more PAHs are getting into the air from coal tar-sealed parking lots, driveways and playgrounds than from all the auto and truck exhaust.

It's amazing what we surround ourselves with...

Amazing, great find..

The sad part is that this has probably always been known, but is cheaper to manufacture than organic material so is used anyway..

Originally posted by My.mind.is.mine
Amazing, great find..

The sad part is that this has probably always been known, but is cheaper to manufacture than organic material so is used anyway..

Ahh....Coal Tar IS ORGANIC.

Jeesh....

It’s got to the point where it is actually pointless to worry about one toxin, chemical, radiation that we are exposed to.
We could spend 10 years removing this problem, while there are millions if not billions of other bigger problems lurking.
I am sick of reading stuff like this, pointing out new dangers and such because it happens so often and no one is actually using their head and tackling the whole issue, instead they target small parts of the problem.

You guys are missing a great business here.
Print out the story, head door to door,
sale them a reseal with paint/sealer something less toxic.
Hire some guys after it takes off.
That sounds almost American

It seems more and more materials we have been using are been found to be bad for our health.
This wont change anytime soon as nothing is ever tested thoroughly enough before it's put into production. We will have to learn the hard way through ill health until the system is radically altered. It wasn't long ago when I was reading in the paper that MDF could be causing cancer and this is still been used in Design technology lessons in the uk's high schools.

Originally posted by RagnarokZ
It seems more and more materials we have been using are been found to be bad for our health.

It has a lot to do with the little fact that anything in excess is bad for out health.

Even things that are necessary for life are deadly in excessive amounts, ie; oxygen, water (and I mean drinking, not drowning), sun light, etc, etc.

Originally posted by peck420

Originally posted by RagnarokZ
It seems more and more materials we have been using are been found to be bad for our health.

It has a lot to do with the little fact that anything in excess is bad for out health.
.

I do agree but It has more to do with the fact that greedy Corporations put £$£$ before our health in the name of saving themselves money.

Thanks, I for one am more wary of volatile hydrocarbons entering thru breating/the nasal mucosa than ingesting some from overcooked BBQ - the latter probably passes thru the gut and is eliminated while the environmentally absorbed toxins go directly into our longs/mucosa then bloodstream, no?

reply to post by phantomjack


Right because they add NOTHING to it?? come on...

Originally posted by RagnarokZ
I do agree but It has more to do with the fact that greedy Corporations put £$£$ before our health in the name of saving themselves money.

I don't know about that. I have taken part in development of some compounds that our company uses. The testing was very strict and detailed, but it has limitations.

There is just so many more variables in the real world that it is impossible to test them all in a lab.

One of the compounds we developed, passed every Canada Health test in labs. Failed in real world within days. We were lucky, it failed quickly in real world so we had minimal clean up. If it had taken years to fail, it would have been so widespread as to create a very large problem.

Some companies will skirt the laws as much as possible, some do their absolute best to make the best/safest product, both can still cause an issue like this.

Good grief, I'm doomed then. Most of my childhood my mom made me use a shampoo that had coal tar as a primary ingredient because I had eczema. It didn't really help, by the way, and I thought it smelled nasty and I hated it, but you do not argue with my mother. Ever. She is an old school authority figure kind of parent, not one of the modern coddling mamas. Unfortunately she didn't know coal tar was so bad for us. Her generation used a lot of weird cures for everything. Some of it was okay. Other stuff, not so much. But that shampoo is still around. I forget the name. If it's that dangerous it ought to be illegal. I think they simply updated it with a warning label that it could cause cancer.

When I was a kid we used to take sticks and play with road tar. And mercury out of broken thermometers.
and we had lead paint on everything. I wonder if that's why my generation hasn't ended war and cured cancer and created hover cars like we thought we would.

Well thanks for alerting us on this thread, I had no idea about all of this. I have to have my driveway redone and resealed in a year or two. I guess I had better find out if there is a safe way of going about this. Or is this sealant all that we have? I've got a feeling it's moot and this junk is just part of the environment now no matter what I decide by myself.