Outdoor sports gear stores harbour high ranges of PFCs in the air

A Greenpeace investigation has found levels of hazardous polyfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) in indoor air of sports gear stores in Europe and Asia that is up to 1,000 times higher than streetside air. 

According to Greenpeace, different kinds of PFCs are used in a wide range of consumer products, including carpets, textiles and leather goods as well as in fire-fighting foam and paints. A number of studies have shown PFCs such as perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) may have hormone disrupting properties that could impact both the reproductive system and the immune system of humans and animals. PFCs have also been implicated in cancers in humans.

Blueair, a mobile indoor air purification technologies provider, says the study provides yet more evidence of the surprising, often hidden dangers lurking in indoor air that endanger human health. “It is ironic that sports gear designed to help people stay healthy is helping to create toxic indoor environments that may make us sick by increasing our exposure to extremely high levels of airborne chemicals,” said Bengt Rittri, CEO of Blueair. The company's purification systems can purify the air in spaces up 100 sq m in size.

Titled Hidden in plain sight: Poly-fluorinated chemicals in the air of outdoor stores, the Greenpeace study involved taking air samples in 30 indoor locations, including 13 stores selling outdoor gear in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Norway, as well as in three stores in Taiwan. The store samples were compared to other samples taken at Greenpeace offices, seminar rooms and warehouses in Hamburg and Taipei as well as in other clothing stores not selling outdoor gear.

According to Greenpeace, concentrations of PFCs in the air in outdoor gear stores in Europe were 20 to 60 times higher than air samples collected in Greenpeace’s office and storage rooms in Hamburg and up to 1,000 times higher than urban outdoor air; with concentrations of PFCs in outdoor stores in Taiwan in the same range as those in Europe. "PFCs in significant concentrations were found in the flagship stores of all companies," the report states.

Earlier studies by Greenpeace discovered chemicals such as PFCs in waterproof outdoor gear including jackets and trousers, shoes, sleeping bags, backpacks, tents, in leather gloves, and in swimwear. In its latest study, Greenpeace said the air sampling found volatile PFCs. mainly fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOH), which are becoming increasingly common as substitutes for ionic PFCs in outdoor clothes and readily evaporate into the air.

“PFCs have been associated with numerous health effects in humans, including kidney and testicular cancer, and their use in consumer products such as clothing and other gear should be avoided if not totally eliminated so as not to put human health at risk by contaminating indoor air,” Rittri said.

Blueair suggests: 

Use an indoor air monitor to get continuous updates about the current quality of the indoor air and pollution outside on the street

Ensure a room is well ventilated at all times. If it is not possible to keep windows and doors open, create a safe indoor environment with an air purifier with filters that set industry standards for efficiency

Listen to what the body says: If a headache, unexplained cough or red and itchy eyes develop, it's possible the indoor air may be polluted

Interested?

Read the Greenpeace investigation report

World Heritage Committee inscribes new world heritage sites

The Singapore Botanic Gardens entrance from Botanic Gardens MRT station.

The World Heritage Committee has inscribed the Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG) as a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) in Bonn, Germany. The committee noted that the site "demonstrates the evolution of a British tropical colonial botanic garden that has become a modern world-class scientific institution used for both conservation and education", and that it has been an important centre for science, research and plant conservation, notably in connection with the cultivation of rubber plantations, in Southeast Asia since 1875.

According to the SBG, the gardens is the first and only tropical botanic garden on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List. It is the first in Asia and the third botanic gardens inscribed in the world following Orto botanico di Padova in Italy and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK.

The inscription bid process started in 2010 following a feasibility study commissioned by the then-Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, in consultation with experts, academics and other stakeholders. Singapore formally submitted the official Nomination Dossier for the bid in January 2014.

The World Heritage Committee also approved the inscription of the Diyarbakir Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape in Turkey; China's Tusi Sites; Susa and the Cultural Landscape of Maymand, both in Iran; the Baekje Historic Areas in Korea; the Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain and its surrounding sacred  landscape, in Mongolia; Bethany Beyond the Jordan; and the rock art in Hail in KSA.

Source: UNESCO World Heritage Committee nomination file. Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape, Hevsel Gardens and Kırklar Hill, copyright: © Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality - Site Management Unit, author: Zeynep Sıla Akıncı.

Turkey
The Diyarbakir Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape are on an escarpment of the Upper Tigres River Basin. The fortified Turkish city of Diyarbakir and the landscape around has been an important centre since the Hellenistic period, through the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman times to the present. The site encompasses the Amida Mound, known as İçkale (inner castle), the 5.8km-long city walls of Diyarbakir with their numerous towers, gates, buttresses, and 63 inscriptions from different periods, as well as Hevsel Gardens, a green link between the city and the Tigris that supplied the city with food and water.

Source: The Zunyi Huichuan District Party Committee Publicity Department. Snow-Covered Feifeng Pass. 

China
Located in the mountainous areas of southwest China, Tusi (土司) sites encompass remains of several tribal domains whose chiefs were appointed by the central government as ‘Tusi’, hereditary rulers from the 13th to the early 20th century. The Tusi system made the autonomous rule by minorities a reality, and facilitated the development of ethnic diversity, strengthened national unity, ensured borderland security, and promoted the peaceful coexistence of the central government and local minority regimes.

The sites of Laosicheng (老司城) in Yongshun County, Hunan; Tangya (唐崖) in Xianfeng County, Hubei; and Hailongtun Fortress (海龙屯城堡) in Zunyi, Guizhou that make up the site bear testimony to this form of governance, which derived from the civilisation of the Yuan and Ming periods.

Hailongtun fortress was built in 1257 CE. The Tusi arrangement was a collaboration between the central government of the Song dynasty and the Yang family, which built and owned the fortress. The family governed the area for more than 700 years, spanning Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, from Yang Rui from the Liao ethnic group in 876 during the Tang dynasty, to Yang Yinglong, the last Tusi of Bozhou (present day Zunyi) and the 29th governor of the Yang family, died in 1600.

Being listed on the World Heritage List will promote studies on the Tusi culture and the history of Bozhou, according to the Office of the Application to World Heritage for Hailongtun, Huichuan District, Zunyi in China. The organisation noted that with Guizhou province's first cultural heritage site, it plans to strengthen the preservation and excavation of historical relics within the territory, and apply for more world cultural heritage listings.

Iran
Susa in southwest Iran, in the lower Zagros Mountains, consists of a group of archaeological mounds on the eastern side of the Shavur River, as well as Ardeshir’s palace, on the opposite bank of the river. Susa contains several layers of superimposed urban settlements in a continuous succession from the late 5^th millennium BCE until the 13^th century CE*. The site bears exceptional testimony to the Elamite, Persian and Parthian cultural traditions, which have largely disappeared.

Maymand is a self-contained, semi-arid area at the end of a valley at the southern extremity of Iran’s central mountains. The villagers are semi-nomadic agro-pastoralists. They raise their animals on mountain pastures, living in temporary settlements in spring and autumn. During the winter months they live lower down the valley in cave dwellings carved out of the soft rock (kamar), an unusual form of housing in a dry, desert environment.  This cultural landscape is an example of a system that appears to have been more widespread in the past and involves the movement of people rather than animals.

Korea
The Baekje (백제) Historic Areas, in the mountainous midwestern region of the Republic of Korea, comprise eight archaeological sites dating from 475 to 660 AD, including the Gongsanseong fortress and royal tombs at Songsan-ri related to the capital, Ungjin (present day Gongju), the Busosanseong Fortress and Gwanbuk-ri administrative buildings, and the Naseong city wall related to the capital, Sabi (now Buyeo), the royal palace at Wanggung-ri and the Mireuksa Temple in Iksan related to the secondary Sabi capital.

Together, these sites represent the later period of the Baekje Kingdom – one of the three earliest kingdoms on the Korean peninsula (18 BCE to 660 CE) –during which time they were at the crossroads of considerable technological, religious (Buddhist), cultural and artistic exchanges between the ancient East Asian kingdoms in Korea, China and Japan.

Mongolia
The Great Burkhan Khaldun (Бурхан Халдун) Mountain and its surrounding sacred landscape is in northeast Mongolia in the central part of the Khentii mountain chain. Burkhan Khaldun is associated with mountain worship. The site is also believed to be the place of Genghis Khan’s birth and burial.

Jordan
The baptism site “Bethany Beyond the Jordan” (Al-Maghtas, المغطس) is on the east bank of the River Jordan, and consists of two distinct areas: Tell Al-Kharrar (تَل الخرّار), also known as Jabal Mar-Elias (Elijah’s Hill, جبل مار إلياس) and the area of the churches of Saint John the Baptist near the river. The site is believed to be the location where Jesus of Nazareth was baptised by John the Baptist. It features Roman and Byzantine remains.

KSA
Rock art in the Hail (حائل) region of Saudi Arabia includes both Jabel Umm Sinman at Jubbah (جبة) and the Jabal al-Manjor and Raat at Shuwaymis (ال شوويمس). The ancestors of today’s Arab populations have left traces of their passages in petroglyphs and inscriptions on the rock face, covering 10,000 years of history.

Vietnam
The Committee has additionally extended Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park (Kẻ Bàng) in Vietnam, a natural site inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2003. The extension ensures a more coherent ecosystem while providing additional protection to the catchment areas that are of vital importance for the integrity of limestone landscapes.

The site originally covered 85,754 hectares and now covers a total surface area of 126,236 hectares (a 46% increase). The Park’s landscape is formed by limestone plateaux and tropical forests. It features great geological diversity and offers spectacular phenomena, including a large number of caves and underground rivers.

Other developments during the World Heritage Committee discussions include inscribing a number of World Heritage sites  on the List of World Heritage in Danger due to damage inflicted to the property by armed groups. These include Hatra in Iraq and the Yemeni cities of Sana’a and Shibam.

Iraq
Hatra was a fortified city which grew under the influence of the Parthian Empire and was the capital of the first Arab kingdom. It withstood Roman invasions in 116 and 198 AD thanks to its walls, which are reinforced by towers.

World Heritage Committee members have declared their willingness to help Iraq as soon as the situation on the ground will allow them to do so. The Committee stressed that the danger listing of Hatra was a way to rally the support of the international community for the country’s heritage.

Two other Iraqi sites are also on the World Heritage List in Danger: Ashur (inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2003) and Samara Archaeological City (inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2007).

Yemen
The World Heritage Committee has voiced concerns about the damage to the old city of Sana’a (سناء) due to armed conflict in Yemen. Situated in a mountain valley at an altitude of 2,200 m, Sana’a has been inhabited for more than 2,500 years. Its religious and political heritage can be seen in 103 mosques, 14 hammams and over 6,000 houses, all built before the 11^th century. The neighbourhood of al Qasimi and the 12^th century al-Mahdi Mosque have been affected.


The Committee also noted that the Old Walled City of Shibam (شِبَام) in Yemen is under potential threat from the armed conflict, which compounds safeguarding and management problems already observed at the site. The Committee decided that adding it to the List of World Heritage in Danger could help reinforce international mobilisation for the safeguarding of the site.


Surrounded by a fortified wall, the 16th-century city of Shibam is one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction. 

The 39^th session of the World Heritage Committee started on 28 June and will continue till 8 July under the chair of Maria Böhmer, Minister of State at the German Federal Foreign Office and member of the Bundestag. The inscription of sites will continue through 5 July.

*BCE stands for 'before common era', corresponding to BC, and CE for common era, corresponding to AD.

Are we ingesting too much aluminium?

Naan wrapped in aluminium foil.

Aluminium in the diet has become an increasing concern ever since the metal was implicated in causing Alzheimer's disease in the mid 1960s. The metal can come from a variety of sources, including foods cooked or stored in aluminium or clay crockery and aluminium packaging; foods that naturally contain aluminium, like tea, and foods that are made with aluminium-based additives, such as baked goods.

Yes, you can get your daily dose of aluminium from cakes and tea. One study found that aluminium levels are generally low in unprocessed foods, typically under 1 ppm and rarely exceeding 10 ppm*, but the story is different for tea leaves. The same study noted that the richest natural sources of aluminium for Chinese food in Harbin are tea leaves, Chinese prickly ash (Sichuan pepper) and mustard*. Another study which focused on teas in Sichuan noted that brick teas, which are chiefly composed of old leaves, have the highest aluminium concentrations of all types of tea.

Drinking tea itself may be a negligible source of dietary aluminium however. Studies have found that there is little increase in the level of aluminium found in blood plasma or in urine after drinking black or green tea, with milk or lemon juice.

What about aluminium leaching from aluminium pots and pans, dishes or packaging, then? A 1992 study from Food Additives and Contaminants studied just that and found that very small or undetectable levels of aluminium actually leached out of aluminium containers into food, but, as always, 'it depends'. 

A 1993 study, done in Harbin and published in the Chinese Journal of Preventive Medicine (Zhonghua Yu Fang Yi Xue Za Zhi), concluded that Chinese people in Harbin consume an average of 4 to 15 mg, and rarely up to 20 mg of aluminium in the daily diet.  According to the study, tea leaves can contain between 300 to 1,800 ppm of aluminium, and 16 to 20% of this aluminium can be extracted from the leaves. Foods can contain 10 to 30 ppm of aluminium after processing and handling, the researchers added.

Foods made with aluminium-containing food additives contain extremely high level of aluminium, however. Such additives** may include E523, aluminium ammonium sulphate, used in industrial baking powder, or E541, sodium aluminium phosphates (acidic and basic) which may be used in the production of baked goods, cheese products, confectionery, frozen fish, minced meat, and stews. Other additives include and are not limited to E554, which is sodium aluminosilicate, E556, calcium aluminium silicate, and E559, aluminium silicate. According to the Chinese researchers, people can consume more than 100 mg of aluminium daily from their diet due to intake of foods made with aluminium-containing food additives.

The Science of the Total Environment also contains a 1997 study from India which agrees with the Chinese study. It noted that baking powder is a rich source of aluminium. A kg of cake prepared with one to three teaspoons of baking powder may contain 2 to 12.7 mg of aluminium in a 25g serving, the Indian researchers said.

The question is how much is too much. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, has a toxicological profile for aluminium that lists minimum risk levels for exposure to the metal. Oral exposure should be no more than1 mg of aluminium per kg of body weight per day. Through staying away from baked goods and possibly medications that contain aluminium, we are all probably within safe levels. To be on the safer side, we can also minimise aluminium intake based on what we know so far.

A 2003 study in Environmental Geochemistry and Health conducted in Hong Kong has some advice on minimising aluminium from tea consumption:

• Go for younger tea leaves
• Indian tea varietals grown in the same place as Chinese tea varietals have less aluminium 
• Green tea has less aluminium content than black tea
• Steep the tea in the pot - more aluminium is released with the repeated tea infusion method (emptying the teapot once the tea is brewed and then adding fresh boiling water to make another pot of tea) compared to the continuous infusion method (leaving the tea to steep in the pot).

What about cooking?

• Don't worry about boiling neutral porridge. Boiling neutral (non-alkali and non-acidic) porridge in aluminium pans causes no migration of aluminium out of the pan into the porridge***
• Relatively small amounts of aluminium come through with milk. Milk causes leaching of 0.2 to 0.8 mg/kg***
• Don't boil tap water in aluminium pans for too long. 
• Bringing water to boil causes leaching of 0.54 to 4.3 mg/l. This increased with increasing boiling time, to 6.3-17 mg/l, perhaps explaining why adding more boiling water to tea also raises aluminium levels***
• A different study was more precise: boiling water in aluminium pans caused aluminium concentrations to rise to 2.6 mg/l after 15 minutes****
• Beware of cooking acidic foods in aluminium pans
• Aluminium dissolved in foods based on acidic fruit juice registered at 2.9 to 35 mg/kg when the foods were boiled in aluminium pans*** 
• The highest aluminium concentration of 170 mg/kg was measured in rhubarb juice prepared in the steaming vessel***
• Tomato sauce made from mashed tomatoes cooked in non-coated aluminium pans contained 10-15 mg/kg of aluminium after an hour of cooking****

And what about storing foods and liquids in aluminium containers? Some studies throw light on this:

• Coffee seems safe. Coffee, strangely enough, had lower levels of aluminium than in the tap water that was used in its preparation****.
• Relatively little aluminium is poured out with Coca-Cola that has been stored in internally lacquered aluminium cans (levels of below 0.25 mg/l)****
• Stay away from acidic liquids stored in aluminium containers. Lime blossom tea acidified with lemon juice stored in non-coated aluminium camping bottles for five days (up to 7 mg/l)****

Editor's note: Aluminium content is reported directly from the research reports. Some are in parts per million, others in mg per litre (l), while yet others are in mg per kg. It is not possible to compare these measurements directly. With water however the mg/l and mg/kg figures would be the same as 1 g of water has a volume of 1 ml. 

*These figures come from a 1993 study done in Harbin and published in the Chinese Journal of Preventive Medicine (Zhonghua Yu Fang Yi Xue Za Zhi).

**Some of these additives are banned in different countries.

***These figures come from a 1992 study from Food Additives and Contaminants.

****These figures come from a 1993 study published in Zeitschrift für Lebensmittel-Untersuchung und -Forschung.