The interior of your car is potentially carcinogenic (especially when it is hot!)

Your car is dangerous for your health because of what it emits. If we already knew that a new car exposes us to various sources of interior pollution, a new study published Tuesday reveals another problem over time: in the event of exposure to the sun, your vehicle also begins to release a carcinogenic gas, causing tumors.

A flame retardant that causes tumors

The study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology thus points to triphosphate (TCIPP), present in 99% of recent vehicles tested by researchers. It is a flame retardant supposed to slow down flames in the event of a fire, injected into the foam of car seats since 2015.

Useful therefore, but imperfect: when it is hot (and you park your car in direct sunlight), this TCIPP can release a toxic gas to which you are inevitably exposed when you get back into your vehicle. According to researchers, this same gas is the cause of liver and uterine tumors in rats and mice. It is also recognized as an endocrine disruptor.

Is it possible to escape it?

This matter should be taken seriously, especially since we spend an average of an hour every day in our car, often also with our children. For researchers, it is nothing more and nothing less than a public health issue from which it is difficult to escape.

However, there are precautions that can limit the process: parking your car in the shade as much as possible, and avoiding the “recirculation” mode of the vehicle air conditioning system, which consists of reusing the air present in the vehicle in a loop. inside the car, for the benefit of a very simple window opening.

“Of course, this means that the flame retardants will enter the outside air and possibly make their way to waterways and wildlife” specify the authors who especially hope that this discovery will force manufacturers to find less harmful solutions.