When you think about the environmental hazards in today’s world, you probably think about things such as smoking, chemical fumes, pollution and emissions from vehicles. The threat that a simple 3D printer could have on your wellbeing is probably not something that crosses your mind in the slightest.
It should, though, as new research has shown that using a 3D printer in your home could be more hazardous for your wellness than smoking.
This startling new research from the Illinois Institute of Technology has warned consumers that they should not use these 3D printers in any part of the home that is not extremely well ventilated. This is the first study that has been carried out into the effects of 3D printers. These printers are supposed to be environmentally friendly as they melt down common plastics and reform them into other items, such as toys, but the new research has revealed that during the process they fire off harmful ultrafine particles (UFPs) into the atmosphere of your home. It was found during the study that when the printers create a plastic item, the emission rates go up to around 200 billion UFPs per minute, and this is roughly the equivalent of smoking a cigarette in an unventilated room, or using a gas stove in a room that has no ventilation at all.
The UFPs that are released during the process can be extremely harmful to the health, as they are normally deposited straight into the pulmonary and alveolar regions of the lungs, as well as in the airways and in the head. They can even enter the brain through the olfactory nerves in the eyes, and the inhalation of the harmful particles can cause all kinds of devastating effects, such as stroke, shortness of breath, cardiac arrest and even sudden death.