Evaluation of COSHH Essentials: Methylene Chloride, Isopropanol, and Acetone Exposures in a Small Printing Plant

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bowen RB ; Harper M ; Lee EG ; Slaven, James E.
• Description:
  The current study evaluated the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Essentials model for short-term task-based exposures and full-shift exposures using measured concentrations of three volatile organic chemicals at a small printing plant. A total of 188 exposure measurements of isopropanol and 187 measurements of acetone were collected and each measurement took similar to 60 min. Historically, collected time-weighted average concentrations (seven results) were evaluated for methylene chloride. The COSHH Essentials model recommended general ventilation control for both isopropanol and acetone. There was good agreement between the task-based exposure measurements and the COSHH Essentials predicted exposure range (PER) for cleaning and print preparation with isopropanol and for cleaning with acetone. For the other tasks and for full-shift exposures, agreement between the exposure measurements and the PER was either moderate or poor. However, for both isopropanol and acetone, our findings suggested that the COSHH Essentials model worked reasonably well because the probabilities of short-term exposure measurements exceeding short-term occupational exposure limits (OELs) or full-shift exposures exceeding the corresponding full-shift OELs were < 0.05 under the recommended control strategy. For methylene chloride, the COSHH Essentials recommended containment control but a follow-up study was not able to be performed because it had already been replaced with a less hazardous substance (acetone). This was considered a more acceptable alternative to increasing the level of control. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Case Reports Environmental Monitoring Hypersensitivity Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Particulate Matter Printing Safety Ventilation
• Keywords:
  Airborne-particles Author Keywords: Control Banding Case-studies Chemical-hypersensitivity COSHH Essentials Employee-exposure Employee-health Employees Exposure-assessment Exposure-levels Exposure-methods Exposure Assessment Occupational-exposure Occupational-hazards Occupational-health Occupational Exposure Limits Organic-chemicals Printing-industry R-phrases Risk Assessment Tool Time-weighted-average-exposure Ventilation-systems Worker-health

  More +
• ISSN:
  0003-4878
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 4 ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  HELD - Health Effects Laboratory Division
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  463-474
• Volume:
  53
• Issue:
  5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20035720
• Citation:
  Ann Occup Hyg 2009 Jul; 53(5):463-474
• Contact Point Address:
  Martin Harper, Exposure Assessment Branch, Health Effects Laboratory Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Morgantown, WV 26505
• Email:
  zzg7@cdc.gov
• CAS Registry Number:
  Acetone (CAS RN 67-64-1) ; Dichloromethane (CAS RN 75-09-2) ; Isopropanol (CAS RN 67-63-0)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Annals of Occupational Hygiene
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ee846a9f81f272c33b3a2bb385d7a18fe47d64e771661a4dc9cba7748ebfa9af8bcb8f12b28844113bbe35afa6a88d1a6a2aa3d375e6d17cb6ddc6259dac23da
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/187489/cdc_187489_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 352.75 KB ]