PAH in clothing

mail from Joseph Mc Donald

I am hoping you may be able to answer a question that seems to have everyone staring into space. It appears we are all focused on what pollutants are in the air , water and soil but no one seems to know what happens to them when they come into contact with our clothing.

Living in a area where coal burning is still common practice for domestic heat and power generation it is quite common for clothing to be exposed to various levels of Coal soot and it's bi- products on a daily basis. ( just a note we burn oil but have many neighbors that burn coal and one of the power plants is 2 miles away) Seeing soot on the cars etc. is part of daily living and we always assumed once our clothes were machine washed with a brand name detergent any soot contamination would be removed. However approximately 15 months ago a family member became ill and it was determined PAH or heavy metal exposure were contributing factors. Since this individual worked in an office environment as did the rest of the family we frantically searched for the potential source and had various tests completed.

To our surprise we found various trace heavy metals and PAH evidence still present in freshly washed clothes which was shocking and the urine analysis for heavy metals on all three family members followed the same pattern, including a 13 year old. All clothes were also machine dried indoors. It appeared Sulfur, Barium, Beryllium, Thallium, Uranium, Magnesium, Strontium and Nickel for example were in the clothes after washing and also over the normal ranges in our bodies. Yet lead, mercury, etc were all perfect. We did not have the resources to do any extensive testing on PAHs but did find 1-oh-pyrene in urine ( benzene). I could not afford to have any further testing completed.

My question is has anyone completed any detailed testing in this area after removal of the tri sodium phosphates from the detergents to ensure no traces of PAH or heavy metals were being left behind. The detergent manufactures will not give anything other than a generic answer and I have tried them all. There are thousands of individuals that work in various heavy industry that are exposed to PAHs and heavy metals daily , those on the street levels of the larger cities, etc. who like us wash our clothes in the household machine assuming all of these potential toxins are being removed. But are they really or are we wearing a toxic patch.

From your experiences with PAHs / heavy metals over the years how would you say they should behave when on clothing and are exposed to a machine wash and modern detergent, would they stay in place since they do not dissolve in water, would they eventually break down on the clothing even though they are not being exposed to direct sunlight or microorganisms in soil. Would they ever break down in an indoor environment. Do they just sit there on the clothes until we eventually come into contact with them and absorb them.

Answer

Contaminants in clothes are an issue. There are also related investigations (at least determining contaminant levels). However, these are related to pesticide residues, heavy metals (black coloured clothes) and cancer causing dye compounds. We have here a monthly journal 'oekotest', which deals with issues like contaminations in various consumer products.
However, I would argue that PAH in clothes is not an issue of concern.

Points to consider

# PAH will not be removed by washing, only partly. However, the part easily available for further transport into the body will be removed.
# one should focus on the main routes of transport into the body - which is transport through the lungs (diesel particulates, road dust, tobacco smok, of course soot from coal burning).

That is uptake by routes other than clothes is far more likely!

Similar to contamination of soil, also in clothes only a part of the PAH is readily available for transport.
This is due to differences in physical properties (PAH group is a mixture of compounds with different solubilities, partition coefficients etc.) and differences in the nature of bonding and location inside the fibers. PAH located on the surface are very much more available for transport than PAH which have penetrated into the fibres.
By the way, phosphates are not an issue here. The main action of removing the contamination is due to surfactants. In detergents the phosphates have been replaced by other ingredients, which at least have similar positive effect on removal of PAH as the phosphates.

So there are essentially only two alternatives - move to a location in a pristine environment or raise the issue of environmental contamination.

I am very sorry about the health problems experienced in your family.