School of Civil and Resource Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian, Beijing, 100083, China.
State Administration of Market Supervision Risk Assessment Center for Imported Consumer Product, China Academy of Inspection and Quarantine, Beijing, 100176, China.
Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 2021 Oct;94(7):1581-1589. doi: 10.1007/s00420-021-01727-6. Epub 2021 Jul 20.
According to epidemiological studies, heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, and lead are "known" carcinogenic substances. After recycling, these metals remain in processed plastics. The purpose of this study was to assess the health risks of heavy metal skin exposure to workers in facilities that recycle plastics.
We used inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry to measure the dissolution concentrations of heavy metals in artificial sweat. Twenty-five samples of pellets of recycled plastic were examined, which were composed variously of polypropylene, high-density polyethylene, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer, high impact polystyrene, and polyamide. In addition, we used a "two-step assessment model," divided into exposure and risk characterization, to evaluate the health risks of heavy metal exposure in a simulated exposure environment of pellets of a recycled plastic processing workshop.
Except for chromium (92%), the detection of lead, cadmium and arsenic was 100% in 25 samples of pellets of recycled plastic. The possible carcinogenic risk levels of As and Cr were, respectively, 2 and 38 times greater than the unacceptable risk level of 10 proposed by the US EPA. In addition, arsenic had the highest noncarcinogenic risk of 1.381 × 10, which was in the potential risk range of 10-10 proposed by the US EPA.
We found clear exposure-risk associations between heavy metals (lead, cadmium, chromium, arsenic) and worker health. Particularly, we found workers exposed to As and Cr were more likely to incur cancer.
根据流行病学研究，砷、镉、铬和铅等重金属是“已知”的致癌物质。回收后，这些金属仍存在于加工塑料中。本研究旨在评估回收塑料设施中工人接触重金属的皮肤健康风险。
我们使用电感耦合等离子体质谱法测量人工汗液中重金属的溶解浓度。检查了 25 个回收塑料颗粒样本，这些样本由聚丙烯、高密度聚乙烯、丙烯腈-丁二烯-苯乙烯共聚物、高抗冲聚苯乙烯和聚酰胺等各种材料组成。此外，我们使用“两步评估模型”，分为暴露和风险特征描述，评估回收塑料加工车间颗粒模拟暴露环境中重金属暴露的健康风险。
除铬（92%）外，25 个回收塑料颗粒样本中均检测到铅、镉和砷，检出率为 100%。As 和 Cr 的可能致癌风险水平分别比美国环保署提出的不可接受风险水平 10 高出 2 倍和 38 倍。此外，砷的非致癌风险最高，为 1.381×10，处于美国环保署提出的 10-10 潜在风险范围内。
我们发现重金属（铅、镉、铬、砷）与工人健康之间存在明显的暴露-风险关系。特别是，我们发现接触 As 和 Cr 的工人更有可能罹患癌症。
