Environmental Question #23 [Offgassing Products]

Courtesy of Reddit user u/ElementreeCr0

Q: Cork is used as a healthier material than plastics in applications like flooring, yoga mats, etc. Yet cork itself has a lasting noticeable smell, which I take it means it is "offgassing" some smellable chemicals. Is the offgassing from cork a health concern for something used a lot like a yoga mat? What about for children using such mats?

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A: Great question, you've sent me down a rabbit hole of reading about cork yoga mats. I'll need your help to answer that question. Does the mat smell like wood, rubber, or "chemicals?"

If the mat smells like wood, then you have nothing to worry about. All plants, including cork trees, contain various oils that can evaporate over time to create characteristic smells. Smelling this is no more dangerous than walking through a forest where some trees have fallen.

If the mat smells like rubber or "chemicals" then there is slightly more cause for concern, but not enough that you should be really worried about it. One wonderful thing about the human body that we often don't give it enough credit for is that even though our senses aren't as sensitive as many animals, they are more than sensitive enough to keep us safe in most cases. The easiest way of thinking about this for me is in terms of the "daily exposure limits" that are set out by various workplace chemical safety organizations worldwide. This number refers to the amount of a given chemical that a person can be exposed to constantly all day every day at work without suffering related health effects. I've worked around dangerous chemicals in laboratories for years, but until I started working in a chemical factory I had never been exposed to anything remotely close to the daily exposure limit. For any chemical that has a smell, the stench of the safe daily dose is OPPRESSIVE. If you've ever smoked anything before, think of the first time you took a puff and that will give you a decent idea. And that is how pungent the safe dose is. Dangerous doses cause obvious effects like coughing, dizziness, watery eyes, etc. So I can say with quite a bit of certainty that the offgassing from a single yoga mat is not a significant health hazard.

That said, bioaccumulating toxins do exist and there are cases where continued exposure can get people sick, particularly children. For example, formaldehyde is one such toxin and it used to be used as part of the glue for making the cheap imitation wood found in things like Ikea furniture until about 10 years ago. In those cases the formaldehyde would offgas slowly for months, damaging the lungs of anyone breathing it. This could be a problem, because it meant that a freshly furnished home full of all brand new cheap furniture could be offgassing simultaneously, raising the concentration of formaldehyde in the home to high levels for months.

Fortunately formaldehyde was banned for use in glues years ago, and now manufacturers need to prove that their products are free of any potentially offgassing formaldehyde before selling their products. Also fortunately, offgassing stops after all of the smelly chemicals have had a chance to leave the material, so if you leave anything smelly hanging outside for a few days it should lose most or all of its smell on its own.

tl;dr Chemical smells from most new consumer products shouldn't be a major concern, but if it bothers you leave it outside to air out for a few days and both the smell and the hazard will be neutralized.

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