A Pilot Assessment of Occupational Health Hazards in the U.S. Electronic Scrap Recycling Industry [2015]

Details

• Personal Author:
  Ceballos, Diana M. ; Gong W ; Page, Elena H.
• Description:
  The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) surveyed a randomly selected sample of electronic scrap (e-scrap) recycling facilities nationwide to characterize work processes, exposures, and controls. Despite multiple attempts to contact 278 facilities, only 47 responded (17% response rate). Surveyed facilities reported recycling a wide variety of electronics. The most common recycling processes were manual dismantling and sorting. Other processes included shredding, crushing, and automated separation. Many facilities reported that they had health and safety programs in place. However, some facilities reported the use of compressed air for cleaning, a practice that can lead to increased employee dust exposures, and some facilities allowed food and drinks in the production areas, a practice that can lead to ingestion of contaminants. Although our results may not be generalizable to all U.S. e-scrap recycling facilities, they are informative regarding health and safety programs in the industry. We concluded that e-scrap recycling has the potential for a wide variety of occupational exposures particularly because of the frequent use of manual processes. On-site evaluations of escrap recyclers are needed to determine if reported work processes, practices, and controls are effective and meet current standards and guidelines. Educating the e-scrap recycling industry about health and safety best practices, specifically related to safe handling of metal dust, would help protect employees. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Air Pollution, Indoor Dust Electrical Equipment And Supplies Engineering Health Promotion Metals Noise Occupational Health Particulate Matter Personal Protective Equipment Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Safety Management Staff Development Surveys And Questionnaires Ventilation Waste Management

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• Keywords:
  Air-contamination Airborne-dusts Airborne-particles Author Keywords: Electronic Scrap Recycling Dust-exposure Dusts E-scrap E-scrap Survey Report E-waste Electronic-components Electronic-devices Electronic-equipment Electronic Waste Recycling Engineering-controls Exhaust-ventilation Exposure-levels Health-programs Health And Safety Metal-compounds Metal-dusts Metallic-compounds Occupational-health-programs Occupational-safety-programs Personal-protective-equipment Questionnaires Risk-factors Safety-programs Survey Ventilation-systems Waste-disposal Waste-disposal-systems Work-organization Work-practices

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• ISSN:
  1545-9624
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  482-488
• Volume:
  12
• Issue:
  7
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20045856
• Citation:
  J Occup Environ Hyg 2015 Jul; 12(7):482-488
• Email:
  DCeballos@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c50ddaa31f71d1cad919d4aa73b659d2db1c630edfa10757aefc9193f7649c732a31eb3c5b532ec8d27580dede8b372a4c2d388ab6c8c2f0c519a0320d999aa5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/201113/cdc_201113_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 285.82 KB ]