Latex paint steadily degrades until it's dust. The breakdown is accelerated by UV light, but the end product of all exposed latex painted surfaces is the same;

Latex paint steadily degrades until it's dust. The breakdown is accelerated by UV light, but the end product of all exposed latex painted surfaces is the same; it chalks, flakes, and steadily emits dust and fine particles into the environment. Regular re-painting can keep the old paint largely encapsulated, but it's still there waiting for an unsuspecting home owner to sand or scrape it loose while doing repairs or renovation. Outdoors, that dust contributes to the lead load in the soil around the house. Indoors, it's house dust, which babies and kids are naturally bathed in because they live closer to the floor than adults do, and because they put everything in their mouths. In both cases the vectors of exposure are both oral and by inhalation. Another big contributor to lead dust in households is older (early 2000's and earlier) vinyl window blinds [1]. Many vinyl products contained lead, and vinyl chalks the same way latex paint does as it degrades. 1 - https://cchealth.org/lead-poison/pdf/miniblinds.pdf https://cchealth.org/lead-poison/pdf/miniblinds.pdf