Occupational Mercury Exposure to Workers in Fluorescent Lamp Recycling Plant
Date Issued
2004
Date
2004
Author(s)
Yang, Hsin-Yi
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
The consumption of fluorescent lamps in Taiwan is about 90 million each year, thus much hazardous waste has been produced. To reduce environmental pollution, the recycle of fluorescent lamps has begun since 2002 in Taiwan. There are four factories authorized by Taiwan EPA to process waste lamps. Processing disposed fluorescent lamps is a newly-established industry, and there are no exposure assessment data available in Taiwan.
The assessment of mercury exposure to workers was conducted by environmental monitoring, biological monitoring and questionnaire data.
Among stationary samples of mercury vapor, most of the concentrations were below 0.05 mg/m3, except the exit of treated material. Concentrations inside the processing enclosure were beyond 0.1 mg/m3 , whether enclosure was in operation or during cleaning . Personal sampling concentration is affected by the entering frequency to enclosure or by processing other special work like crumbling broken lamps or distilling fluorescent powder, or cleaning the enclosure. The mercury exposure may be underestimated by using Hydrar sorbent tube alone. In biological monitoring, lamp loading workers had higher U-Hg concentration. Although the workers all wore respirators, U-Hg concentration showed that they were still exposed to mercury. According to questionnaire, personal sampling concentration and U-Hg concentration, whether using respirators correctly or not is the main factor to affect workers’ mercury exposure.
Subjects
生物偵測
作業環境測定
汞
日光燈管回收作業
biological monitoring
environmental monitoring
mercury
fluorescent lamp processing
SDGs
Type
thesis
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