The Nordic Expert Group for Criteria Documentation of Health Risks from Chemicals and the Dutch Expert Committee on Occupational Standards : 133. Tetrachloroethylene (PER) (original) (raw)
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2005
Arbete och Hälsa Arbete och Hälsa (Work and Health) is a scientific report series published by the National Institute for Working Life. The series presents research by the Institute's own researchers as well as by others, both within and outside of Sweden. The series publishes scientific original works, dissertations, criteria documents and literature surveys. Arbete och Hälsa has a broad targetgroup and welcomes articles in different areas. The language is most often English, but also Swedish manuscripts are welcome.
Objectives: Cleaning products are considered less hazardous than those used in other sectors. Suppliers and distributors are less conscientious when it comes to informing users on health risks. The aim of the study was to elaborate on the usefulness and clarity of information in the safety data sheets (SDS) for cleaning products, and considering if the use of these SDSs can be seen as a risk factor towards occupational exposure to hazardous chemicals in the sector. Material and Methods: Safety data sheets were selected based on the risk level of the product assigned in an industrial sector scheme. 320 SDSs for cleaning products were reviewed. Constituent components found in the products over a given threshold were listed and available information thereof used to assess the perceived non-hazard consideration of the chemicals. Results: The contents of the SDSs was generic and mostly incomplete. Safety measures and health information lacked sufficient specificity despite varying compositions and concentrations of components. There is generally incompatibility between mentioned sections on the suggested non-hazardous nature of the products and health effects. Not all substances used in these products have harmonized classifications, which makes them open to various classification of the products and the suggested safety measures. This results in different companies classifying similar products differently. Risk management measures and suggested personal protective equipment (PPEs) are given haphazardly. Physical properties relevant to risk assessment are not included. Conclusions: The safety data sheets are ambiguous, and they lack relevant and important information. Inadequate information and risk assessment concerning the products can lead to workers being exposed to hazardous chemicals. Underestimation of the hazard contribution of the components of the products and the insufficient, non-objective mention of appropriate control and protective measures are the major contributing elements. There is a need to test the products in order to establish health effects and product specific safety measures.
The Nordic Expert Group for Criteria Documentation of Health Risks from Chemicals
2013
The main task of the Nordic Expert Group for Criteria Documentation of Health Risks from Chemicals (NEG) is to produce criteria documents to be used by the regulatory authorities as the scientific basis for setting occupational exposure limits for chemical substances. For each document, NEG appoints one or several authors. An evaluation is made of all relevant published, peer-reviewed original literature found. The document aims at establishing dose-response/dose-effect relationships and defining a critical effect. No numerical values for occupational exposure limits are proposed. Whereas NEG adopts the document by consensus procedures, thereby granting the quality and conclusions, the authors are responsible for the factual content of the document.
Harmonisation of standards related to limiting chemical risk associated with work processes
Annals of agricultural and environmental medicine : AAEM, 2013
The presented paper tackles the issue of risk factors specific to work processes that involve the presence of chemicals. The reason that supports the present approach is the fact that the risks most likely to affect health in the workplace have been lately associated with the exposure of workers engaged in industrial activities to aggressive chemical agents. In order to tackle this problem, we shall resort to the normative regulations that have been adjusted upon Romania's inclusion in the European Union. The harmonization and alignment of the national standards--applied to the work systems that make use of various chemical substances likely to affect the health of the human resource--to the European guidelines and regulations has brought about a significant improvement in workplace security practices. Consequently, the arguments and demonstrations in the presented study are based on elements of the European acquis and the Romanian regulations which are all related to the chemic...
Exposure to Tetrachloroethylene in Dry Cleaning Shops in the Nordic Countries
Annals of Occupational Hygiene, 2011
Tetrachloroethylene is the dominant solvent used in dry cleaning worldwide and many workers are potentially exposed. We report here on results of 1296 measurements of tetrachloroethylene undertaken in Nordic dry cleaning shops 1947-2001. Methods: We searched documents and files in the Nordic institutes of occupational health for air measurements of tetrachloroethylene. Repeated measurements from the same facility during a short time interval were registered only once using the time-weighted average. We registered also changes over time in occupational exposure limits (OELs) to tetrachloroethylene. Results: Only scattered measurements were available from the early years, and the exposure level seemed fairly stable up until the mid 1970s. The median exposure level was 20 p.p.m. in 1976 and decreased to 3 p.p.m. in 2000. Exposure levels in the four Nordic countries followed similar trends. In the late 1960s, the OELs varied between the Nordic countries from 30 to 100 p.p.m. Sweden was first to lower the limit, but limits gradually converged over time. At present, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden use 10 p.p.m., while Norway uses 6 p.p.m. Over time, the average observed exposure level was lower than the OEL in all countries, but in Denmark and Sweden, up to one-third of measured exposures exceeded the OEL. Overall, the stationary measurements for maintenance work showed 36 p.p.m., while the personal measurements showed 7.5 p.p.m. for dry cleaners and 6.25 p.p.m. for shop assistants. Conclusion: The Nordic data illustrate that it is possible over time to control chemical exposures even in an industry consisting of many small and scattered work places.
Rules and recent trends for setting health-based occupational exposure limits for chemicals
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The working environment is the special case of the non-natural environment created by man in which the increased production activity brings about the concentration of stimulators particularly aggressive to the human organism, such as chemical hazards, noise, vibration, extreme temperatures, and finally, intensified psychological and emotional stress. Depending on the nature and intensity, working environment factors have been classified into dangerous, harmful and annoying. The workers are more and more frequently exposed to dangerous chemicals in the working environment. The chemicals cause many diseases including, in the 1st place, respiratory insufficiency, inflammatory skin conditions, psychoneurological disorders and neoplastic diseases. Occupational exposure limit values (OELs), the main criteria for occupational exposure assessment, constitute an important factor for the safe use of chemicals in the working environment. In Poland, to date there are 524 chemical substances and 19 dusts for which maximum admissible concentrations (MAC) have been established.
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For hospital personnel, a number of harmful chemicals exist. The paper deal with very different harmful chemicals, but all chemicals are important and continuing problems where the risks to health, if uncontrolled, are serious. In the research was used descriptive statistical operations and multivariate statistical method, factor analysis (FA), i.e. principal component analysis (PCA). An analysis of 24 organic and inorganic parameters was performed. Results of the correlation analysis suggest that these pollutants pairs might have similar sources or have been affected by similar factors. PCA she confirmed that the mutually correlated elements constitute a group of elements with a similar origin.
Proceedings of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. Section B. Natural, Exact, and Applied Sciences., 2010
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