Concentration Level (pgTEQ/g) of Dioxins in Mothballs Using Paradichlorbenzene

PRODUCT NAME	COMPANY	Paradichlorobenzene PRODUCER	DIOXIN (PCDDs +PCDFs)	Co-PCB	TOTAL DIOXINs
Parazol	Hakugen	unknown	0.18	0.011	0.19
Neo-Para-Ace	ST Chemical	unknown	0.25	ND	0.25
Mothball Para-Home	Fuji Chemical	Nippon Light Metal	1.0	0.012	1.0
Washi (Japanese Traditional Paper) Wrapped Mothball	Ishii Chemical	Hodoya Chemical	0.35	ND	0.35
Wardrobe Mothballs	Osaka Pharmaceutical	Kureha Chemical Industry	0.18	0.013	0.19
New-Para-Tablet-Ace	Sanwa Insecticide	Mitsui Chemical	0.52	ND	0.52

Tested by Maxxam Analytics (Canada)
Test requested by 13 organizations in Japan including Japan Offspring Fund.

There are lots of mothballs sold in ordinary stores. But have you ever thought about their safety? Mothballs that are made from paradichlorobenzene are found to have dangerous chemical "dioxin" inside.

The Japan Offspring Fund with 12 other organizations in Japan and weekly magazine "Shuukan Kinyobi" together conducted a test on dioxin concentration of 6 mothballs sold in ordinary stores. From all 6 mothballs, dioxin was detected. The concentrations ranged from 0.19 to 1.0 pgTEQ/g.

Paradichlorobenzene itself is known as dangerous carcinogenic chemical. Now dioxin is detected too. How dangerous mothballs are!

If you use Parazol (Hakugen) following its direction, you will be using 10 packs of them (1pack is about 80g) in 50L drawer (such as width100cm, length 40cm, and depth 12.5cm). This equals to about 15pgTEQ of dioxin. Also, Parazol is only good for 4 to 6 month, so suppose that we put new Parazol into drawer 5 times in 2 years, the total dioxin will be about 75pgTEQ. If another mothball, "Mothball Para-Home" is used in the same way, the total dioxin will be 400pgTEQ.

Where do those dioxin go when mothballs are used? Mothballs shrink as time passes and at the end, only wrapping paper will be left. But this does not mean that dioxin is gone. This means that while mothballs are used, paradichlorobenzene is gradually evaporating and spreading out, polluting not only inside the drawer, but also the room, the house and then, finally outside air. And of course, dioxin, which is contained in mothballs as impurity of paradichlorobenzene spreads out too.

The most polluted of all would be those wardrobes inside drawers. And if those wardrobes were sent out for dry cleaning, dioxin level of solvent would be concentrated and further pollution would occur.

We reported Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare about the result of our test. The officer in charge said that, "the dioxin level should be zero" "what is more problem is the main ingredient", but will those mothballs become banned? It is not clear.