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Characterization of Airborne Particles in an Electronic Waste Recycling Facility and Their Toxicity Assessment
Citation:
Gilmour, Ian, Y. Kim, D. Touati, Todd Krantz, Bill Linak, AND B. Gullett. Characterization of Airborne Particles in an Electronic Waste Recycling Facility and Their Toxicity Assessment. Society of Toxiclogy (SOT) Annual Meeting, SAn Diego, CA, March 22 - 26, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
Assess the relative toxicity of size fractionated partcles from an electronic recycling plant
Description:
Improper disposal of electronic waste (e-waste) can lead to release of toxic chemicals into the environment and also may pose health risks. Thus, recycling e-waste, instead of landfilling, is considered to be an effective way to reduce pollutant release and exposure. However, little is known about environmental releases and potential health impacts at an e-waste recycling facility. In this study, a particulate matter (PM) sampling campaign was conducted at a modern US-based e-waste recycling facility that employs mechanical processing operations. The PM samples were physicochemically analyzed and then given by oropharyngeal aspiration to mice or cultured with lung slices for lung toxicity tests. The results showed that the indoor PM concentrations in each processing line were greater than (up to ~17 times) the national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS). Indoor polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) concentrations were also greatly higher than (up to ~709 times) the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) screening level. Health risk from inhalation of heavy metals in the indoor PM indicated that total values for non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk were found to be higher than (up to ~11 times) the EPA acceptable limit. Finally, the lung toxicity test results showed that indoor coarse PM significantly elicited pro-inflammatory responses in the mouse lung at 24 h post-exposure and similar toxicity outcomes were observed in the lung slice model. We conclude that the e-waste recycling operations produced high concentrations of indoor PM, PBDEs and heavy metals, and these airborne pollutants associated with coarse PM caused substantial lung inflammation. In addition, exposure to PM containing potentially carcinogenic metals is of concern to the long-term health of e-waste recycling workers.