A freshly painted room. Your beloved Sharpie markers. A sparkling bathroom tub. That new car smell.

All familiar odors of VOC-emitting products. Everything from paints to cleaning supplies to furniture and accessories emit VOCs, but what does that mean and why are they so bad?

The EPA defines VOCs as 'volatile organic compounds' that are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. When you breathe those strong chemical-y scents, they're being "offgassed" from the products and can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, headaches, nausea, even long-term damage to the liver, kidney and central nervous system.

Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors, and the non-profit group Green Seal estimates that for every 100 janitors who switch to less volatile cleaning products, VOC emissions could drop by 1 ton a year.

While the EPA states that no standards have been set for VOCs in non industrial settings, the benefits of using low-VOC products are seemingly obvious: better indoor air quality, lower levels of ozone pollution and reduced health risks. Sounds good to us.

Check out Green Seal's website for listings of low-VOC products. Or contact a local indoor air quality specialist (often referenced as IAQ) for professional testing of your home.

Images obtained from Flickr (Geoff Coe, UhOhOver, Love is all that Matters)