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SALT LAKE CITY -- Among the cinnamon and spice aromas of this holiday season lurks something potentially toxic, hanging on a Christmas tree. We can't smell it at all, and it was found quite by accident by Hill Air Force Base and Utah State University researchers.
The research teams literally stumbled upon the familiar guy, a polyresin gingerbread man, that's made in China. It emits a vapor containing what is called 1,2-dichloroethane (DCA).
"We were all surprised, absolutely," said HAFB environmental engineer Kyle Gorder. "We expected a chemical product, something that looked like a chemical product."
The mystery unfolded last year as HAFB and USU environmental teams tried to figure out why homes that had already been cleaned up from another chemical -- which had migrated into shallow groundwater -- were still spiking portable sensors.
"The evidence pointed to something internal, something within the house that actually emitted the chlorinated compound," said USU researcher Bill Doucette.
Gingerbread men and other Christmas ornaments were the villains.
While DCA is a quick and easy way to harden plastics, it's prohibited in the United States for the direct manufacturing of consumer goods. But China is a different story.
Granted, the readings were high inside storage boxes where air doesn't circulate and diffuse the vapors, but still, the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't like levels that breach its standards -- levels, though small, that might increase the risk of cancer.
Gorder said among his colleagues and at the recent meeting of the Society for Toxicology and Environmental Chemistry's annual meeting, reactions were mixed.
"It goes from the initial humor of sometimes very cute and cuddly decorations to: ‘My Goodness! This potentially is a very large problem,'" Gorder said.
The Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has taken a keen interest in the Utah discovery. That federal agency is now looking at other states reporting similar mystery readings.
Gorder said if consumers are worried and want to be absolutely safe, store plastic Christmas decorations and canned solvents in a shed, away from the house or garage.
E-mail: eyeates@ksl.com
