CRI Response To Dancing on Carpet Study

Contact: CRI Communications Department, 706.428.2103

The article was picked up by a national syndication and was distributed to newspapers across the country with such wonderful phrases as killer dust bunnies and how activities such as dancing on the carpet and vacuuming might be hazardous to your health.

As disturbing as the publicity the research has generated is, it not totally shocking because the report has many of the elements of sensationalism the national media usually tends to gravitate toward. As is often the case, though, much of what is said in the study has been ignored and reduced to a few negative sound bytes.

Like many that have appeared before, the study is but one more very limited source strength measurement paper that can, from an informed technical perspective, be interpreted different ways, depending on assumptions and the point of view of the readers or reviewers.

Ordinarily, CRI would not have much reaction to such a study, but under these circumstances, we feel it is necessary to explain some of the flaws in the assumptions being made from the study.

It is anticipated by CRI that the paper when made known and read by the scientific community will not be recognized as cutting edge research; that the very limited measurements in the paper cannot by way of scientific method represent central tendency or normality; and that design, lack of metrics, assumptions, and estimates indicated in the paper do not permit any type of definite conclusion. It should be noted that the authors themselves recognize many of these limitations in the last paragraph of their paper.

When the data found in the paper is compared to other building, personal activity, and cleaning effectiveness studies, it supports fully the position of the need for effective carpet and fabric vacuuming cleaning. There are no cleaning metrics in the study but only the claim that the house is professionally cleaned weekly.

When compared to cleaning effectiveness studies and other building studies, the data in the paper, especially the vacuum emissions data, suggests that particles in this 75-year-old home are not being effectively removed from fabrics and rugs through vacuuming or weekly cleaning. To the contrary, the data as published, suggest that the vacuum cleaner is creating positive feedback and ever increasing particle load to carpet and fabrics. Other research conducted over the past decade would suggest the cleaning assumption presented in the paper is most likely false. The data suggests an unnecessarily dusty home, most likely due to an all too common, high particle emitting vacuum cleaner.

The general media, with its highly negative, sensationalized interpretation of the study, is contributing to unnecessary anxiety and a negative and false image of carpet and fabrics. The suggested contribution of carpet to elevated particle exposure indoors is completely unwarranted.

General information media should be presented with facts, the above interpretation, and be encouraged to give an objective, balanced description of the paper especially for the non-technical reader.

From an environmental research perspective, the paper represents a very limited 5 day particle measurement exercise, in a single 75-year-old house, containing partially sealed off rooms, with relatively low air exchange rates, a high particle emitting vacuum cleaner, and questionable cleaning practices. One would expect these exaggerated, nontypical and undesirable environmental conditions to result in elevated particle levels as presented. Furthermore, conversion of particle counts to particle concentrations in the paper are not recognized as reliable estimates for purpose of assessing or even suggesting health conditions.

Although there are suggestions by the authors of public health concern for elevated particles -- which even as presented in the paper are not that extreme, especially when compared to other indoor sources such as wood burning fireplaces and stoves, pet activity, cooking, and environmental tobacco smoke -- there is no attempt on the part of the authors to make a health risk claim.

The authors of the study admit to using only one kind of vacuum cleaner and that other designs might yield different results, but the harm in confusing the public has already been done. Especially when a poor interpretation of limited research is used to make a determination carpet somehow or another has a bad effect on indoor air quality.

Based on the scientific data we have gathered, and continue to gather, the carpet fiber acts as a strong filter, holding on to pollutants and particles until they can be removed completely from the environment by a Green Label Vacuum cleaner. Particles on a hard surface floor, on the other hand, are easily disturbed and re-suspended by simple activity including walking and HVAC systems. These facts support that in the research conducted for this article, the hard surface floors were preferentially cleaned over the carpet floors for whatever reasons.

Reports like these -- especially when misinterpreted, misrepresented, and sensationalized -- are confusing and ultimately prove to be a disservice to the general public.