Recent Circumstances of Standards for Indoor Air Environment

Since the end of 1960s, with an increase in the economic growth, a large amount of chemical products made from fossil fuel have been used. In addition to the development and the modification of the products for building materials containing many kinds of hazardous chemicals, the techniques for the airtight construction of houses have been remarkably developed. In the latter half of 1970s, among people living in U.S.A. and northern Europe a new syndrome with headache, dizziness, and eye irritation, etc., which was later called as a sick building syndrome (SBS), has emerged. This syndrome was found to be caused by concentrated multiple pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and allergens from fungi and ticks in high airtight rooms with lower ventilation. Recently, the number of patients suffering from biological allergens and VOCs tends to increase. But in Japan the standard values we have in the law on the sanitary management for buildings are limited to those for such three materials as carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and suspended particulate matter (SPM). Therefore, we describe in this report the necessity of the establishment of a new law on the indoor environmental standards for the prevention of our health against some kinds of indoor pollutants such as VOCs in cluding formaldehyde, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3) and asbestos produced not only in offices and working places but also in houses.