.Location

Sources of outdoor pollution

Sources of indoor pollution

Sources of radiation

Sources of soil pollution

Freedom of choice

For the most part, everyone has the freedom to choose where to live and how to materialize lifestyle. Unfortuantely, human pollution, whether from city or farm sources, deposit chemicals, particles, and gases into the air, water, and soil at a rate greater than nature can recycle it. The result is accumulation that causes illness and death to humans, plants, and other organisms. Thus, assuming growing levels of exposure, location, material, process, and waste all require careful consideration in order to maintain or restore health.

Whether choosing to stay put, or move further away from exposure, the following PEC Zone System can help to control a personal environment.

PEC Zone (PZ-)

Zone A - Best possible control - healing space

The object is to eliminate as many possible conditions of exposure and promote a relative safe healing or recovery space. A bedroom is the most likely location yet tends to be the least considered. For example, an average of 8 hours per day, or a third of a person's life, is spent sleeping or resting. During this time the body undergoes its most significant repair work. However, instead of considering the bedroom a healing space and reduce contents to be as benign as possible, the trend is to collect materials like furniture, clothes, and cosmetics known to pollute the space. Tips PZ-A only requires enough space to hold a bed and no other furniture is really needed. Good ventilation, air circulation, and filtration is helpful. A large room can be divided to create a dressing room that separates and contains many pollutants away from the sleep zone.

Zone B - Known control and exposure - living space

Zone C - Known control, unknown exposure - working space

Pollution

Pollution develops when gases, liquids and particulate matter reside in the atmosphere or in water in quantities greater than normal amounts. (It may be difficult to determine what is normal in an already polluted world environment.) Particulate, gaseous, and liquid substances injected directly into the biosphere in large amounts are primary pollutants. Through photoytic and other reactions, primary pollutants give rise to more damaging secondary pollutants.

Tips on location

Consideration for location includes identifying an environment that minimizes exposure and optimizes natural resources. For example, the property where I live is located in the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve at the end of a dead end road not likely to be extended due to terrain and service logistics. Exposure to motor vehicle traffic is significantly less than on town or rural highways. The area is zoned recreational and surrounded by protected forest. Future development is limited to low-density housing. Farm, forest, or mine industry is sufficiently distant or excluded from causing or increasing irritating chemical exposure. The surrounding forest produces clean air and helps filter pollutants. There is a natural stream on the property and a well that delivers potable water without chemical additives like chlorine and fluoride.