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DO WASTE INCINERATORS INDUCE ADVERSE RESPIRATORY EFFECTS? AN AIR QUALITY AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF SIX COMMUNITIES
Citation:
Shy, C., D. Degnan, D. Fox, S. Mukerjee, M. Hazucha, B. Boehlecke, D. Rothenbacher, AND e. al. DO WASTE INCINERATORS INDUCE ADVERSE RESPIRATORY EFFECTS? AN AIR QUALITY AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF SIX COMMUNITIES. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-95/538, 1995.
Description:
The purpose of this study was to measure simultaneously air quality and respiratory function and symptoms in populations living in the neighborhood of waste incinerators, and to estimate the contribution of incinerator emissions to the particulate air mass in these neighborhoods. e studied the residents of three communities having, respectively, a biomedical and a municipal incinerator, and a liquid hazardous waste-burning industrial furnace. e compared results with three matched comparison communities. e did not detect differences in concentrations of particulate matter between any of the three pairs of study communities. ithin the same community daily concentrations of fine particulates varied by as much as 8-fold, from 10 to 80 ug/ml, and were nearly identical within each pair. irect measurements of air quality and estimates based on a chemical mass balance receptor model showed that incinerator emissions did not have a major or even a modest impact on routinely monitored air pollutants. ne-time baseline descriptive survey (n=693) did not reveal consistent community differences in the prevalence of chronic or acute respiratory symptoms between incinerator and comparison communities, nor did we see a difference in baseline lung function tests or in the average peak expiratory flow rate measured over a period of 35 days. ased on this analysis of the first year of our study, we conclude that we have no evidence to reject the null hypothesis of no acute or chronic respiratory effects associated with residence in any of the three incinerator communities.