Cancer-causing chemical inside your car may not be cleanable

A new study published in the journal Environmental Research has found that commuting can lead to exposure to harmful chemicals. This finding comes after a related study showed that longer commutes can lead to greater exposure to these chemicals.

Chlorinated tris, or TDCIPP, is a chemical flame retardant widely used in automobile seat foam. Studies have found that it prevents zebrafish embryos from developing normally and is associated with infertility in certain women. Because of these findings, TDCIPP is on California's Prop. 65 list as a carcinogen.

Volz and his colleagues hope that recent research suggesting dust removal could lead to lower exposure to chemicals is true for car interiors.

The researchers divided nearly 50 study participants, all of them heavy commuters, into four groups. They tracked the groups for two weeks, during which time one group did not wipe dust in their cars at all, another wiped the dust both weeks, and two other groups wiped for only one of the two weeks.

All participants were given silicone wristbands to wear continuously during the two-week testing period to capture airborne contaminants such as TDCIPP. Silicone is ideal for this purpose because of its molecular structure.

"Going into this, our hypothesis was that the no-wipe group would have the highest concentration, the two-week wipe group would be lower, and the partial wipe groups would be somewhere in between," Volz said. "But what we found was that there was basically no difference between any of the groups."

The researchers had previously assumed that commuters' primary exposure to TDCIPP was through contaminated dust. However, one possible explanation for the study's result, Volz said, was the possibility that TDCIPP was not coming from dust that could be cleaned. Instead, it could have moved directly from car seats into wristbands in gas or aerosol form.

"This result suggests dust may not be the primary route of exposure," Volz said. "Dust is definitely something compounds like TDCIPP attach to, however, we can't rule out that people are just inhaling airborne compounds."

The researchers do not think it's likely the flame retardant is coming in through the air vents from outside. Until there is more data, Volz has a suggestion for concerned readers.

"Outside of a major policy change that replaces TDCIPP with something else, it might not hurt to wear a mask in your car," Volz said. "Just like wearing a mask mitigates COVID-19 transmission, so too would aerosol-phase flame retardants be mitigated. N95s are probably best for this purpose."

Source: ScienceDaily