JAPAN
The Ikoma city government in Nara Prefecture is forcing smokers to undergo a “decontamination” period before they can enter elevators, a health rule praised by some but described as draconian by others.
Since this April, workers and visitors to the city government office must wait 45 minutes after they smoke to ride elevators at the building because “exhaled air from smokers could cause passive smoking, and the impact is especially serious in closed spaces.”
Violators face no specific penalties, but even visitors are asked to abide by the rule. Research conducted by Hiroshi Yamato, a health development professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, led to this new elevator policy.
In his study, Yamato measure every five minutes the level of total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) in the exhaled breath of subjects who smoked a cigarette outdoors and returned indoors. Results showed it takes 45 minutes for the amount of TVOCs, which could cause sick building syndrome, in the breath to drop to pre-smoking levels.