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Overview of known sources of mercury vapor in buildings: A discussion paper
Citation:
McCann, E., M. A. MASON, M. Johnson, S. B. Durkee, D. R. Marr, M. ENGLE, G. M. WOODALL, N. A. Robins, AND N. Hagan. Overview of known sources of mercury vapor in buildings: A discussion paper. In Proceedings, 2011 Indoor Air conference, Austin, TX, June 05 - 10, 2011. International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ), Santa Cruz, CA, x, (2011).
Impact/Purpose:
symposium paper for Indoor Air 2011
Description:
This brief overview paper is for use at the 2011 International Air Quality Conference to facilitate discussion among participants at the workshop on mercury as an indoor air pollutant of data gaps in source characterization and in related areas related to improved risk assessment and risk management. Mercury is widely recognized in the U.S. and around the world as a global pollutant that adversely affects human health and ecosystems, particularly from exposure to methylmercury through consumption of contaminated fish. In 2003, the United Nations Environmental Program Governing Council (UNEP GC) concluded that mercury is a global environmental problem and decided in February 2009 to convene an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee that would set forth a process leading to a global legally binding instrument. Attention continues to be focused on reducing industrial and commercial sources of mercury releases to the outdoor environment that can lead to bioaccumulation of methylmercury in fish and shellfish as well as in birds and in various other animals. Less attention has been given in the scientific community to the indoor inhalation exposures to elemental mercury vapor and no overall assessment, considering all sources, of these exposures has been conducted on any scale. Exposure to elemental mercury indoors can result when a mercury-containing product or equipment breaks, or when a supply of liquid mercury is spilled.
