Textile soil coverings have long been tried to be responsible for certain allergies.We now know with certainty that all this is false ...
Good news: the carpet is innocent.It is on this surprising sentence that a press conference opened to rehabilitate this textile floor covering.
For Bernard Guiraud, president of the UFTM, the union of carpet manufacturers and carpets, "you have to repair a great injustice whose carpet is the victim: to be systematically associated with these allergens that are mites".
To better understand the object of the offense, you have to go back to the end of the 1980s, when an advertising campaign for an aspiro-brosseur gives the blow of the carpet by associating it with mites.
If rumor will never sweat beyond French borders, it will wreak havoc in France and real industrial and economic damage in the sector."The return of the prosecution and the arrival of the laminate have pushed the nail, helping to largely conduct the consumption of carpet in France," said Gérard Lalonde, ex-president of the UFTM.
The drop that overflowed the vase
The latter continues: "The drop that overflowed the vase occurred two years ago, when, in a communication campaign, a hotelier said to replace all his carpet with parquet for better hygiene.It was at this crucial moment that we asked the Arcaa* to do serious studies on the subject ".
"It must be recognized that even the medical profession was convinced of the merits of this constant" carpet-Acarians "association, which is a deep injustice, underlines Fabien Squinazi, an expert member of the Arcaa and former director of the hygiene laboratoryfrom the city of Paris.
"Result of this terrible word of mouth, the carpet has largely disappeared from the decoration offer," recalls Claude Chevallier, president of Udirev, 1st grouping of ground covering distributors.It was time to put things back in order ”.
"The fight is the bed and nothing else!"
"75% of cases treated in allergist offices are of respiratory origin," says Fabien Squinazi.The dust mites of the house are eaters and their waste, like their eggs, carry allergens.The problem is therefore not the mite itself, but its secretions ".
In addition, mites are essentially found in what is called the "first reservoir" which is bedding.It is then found in secondary tanks that are textile arrangements, curtains, sofas, quilted seats and floor and wall coverings.
"There are no mites without bed ... The more the bed is infested, the more there will be outside the bed!», Harts Fabien Squinazi.In the dust of the mattresses, the mites content is effective 10 times higher than in the house diversessers analyzed and whatever the soil, there are always mites.
By controlling the bed, the new carpet remains poor in mites for at least a year, provided, of course, as for any other coating, to be maintained correctly ".
Aerosol retention
Three factors promote the appearance of mites: humidity (conditions are optimal if relative humidity is between 60 and 80% at 25 ° C), temperature (ideal for their development and reproduction, if understoodBetween 25 and 32 ° C) and food (they feed on human or animal squams).
"You should know that dry wandering on a parquet floor disseminates allergens, while carpets hold dust and release fewer aerosols than a smooth coating thus cleaned," said the Arcaa expert.
Unlike smooth surfaces, the velvet of the carpets retains the dust and thus reduces the dispersion in the air of allergens which must then be evacuated by an aspiro-brosseur ".
Correct maintenance to provide
Dry scan on hard ground is indeed lifting the allergens 1.50 m from the ground, while a suction on a carpet lifts them only 40 cm."Removing a carpet to fight mites is completely useless to reduce allergens," said Fabien Squinazi.
It is therefore a set of measures that should be applied to eradicate the problem, whatever the floor covering.And the arcaa concludes: carpets and carpets are not responsible for the proliferation of mites, if they are maintained correctly, depending on the manufacturer's recommendations ...
To reassure your customers: the CAA label
Created in 2006, ARCAA, a clinical research association in allergology and asthmology which mobilizes 80 allergologists, aims in particular to carry out clinical, epidemiological or other allergology and asthmology studies and find solutions A?Improving air quality for allergic people.
Following a joint action carried out with the UFTM (Union of carpet manufacturers and carpets), its experts led, in 2015, to the definition of a label of action and advice: the CAA label “fightmites and allergies ”.
According to studies, carpets have VOC (volatile organic compounds) rates lower than other floor coverings.
*Clinical research association in allergology and asthmology.
Source: Batirama.Com / Michèle Fourret
