Department of Work Environment and Legislation, Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority, Norway.
Int J Occup Saf Ergon. 2023 Jun;29(2):604-612. doi: 10.1080/10803548.2022.2061150. Epub 2022 May 2.
Researchers have shown that cleaning workers have an increased risk of asthma and rhinitis, mainly due to exposure to chemical substances present in the cleaning products they use. Among the important substances are glycol ethers, increasingly used as components in cleaning products. This study aimed to assess exposure levels of glycol ether in professional cleaning products and compare them to existing regulatory exposure limit values. Information from safety data sheets of the products is used to identify the glycol ethers present in the cleaning products and their respective concentrations. Other sources were used to obtain the relevant data required for use in the tool to generate exposure assessments. Exposure levels for various cleaning work exposure scenarios were estimated using the ConsExpo Web tool. The estimated exposure values are significantly lower than the existing regulatory occupational exposure limit (OEL) values for the different glycol ethers. The study showed that the risk of exposure to glycol ethers by inhalation from professional cleaning products is minimal as exposure estimates were much below the regulatory OEL values.
研究人员表明，清洁工人患哮喘和鼻炎的风险增加，主要是由于他们使用的清洁产品中存在化学物质。其中重要的物质是乙二醇醚，它越来越多地被用作清洁产品的成分。本研究旨在评估职业清洁产品中乙二醇醚的暴露水平，并将其与现有的监管暴露限值进行比较。产品安全数据表中的信息用于识别清洁产品中存在的乙二醇醚及其各自的浓度。其他来源用于获取工具中生成暴露评估所需的相关数据。使用 ConsExpo Web 工具估算了各种清洁工作暴露场景下的暴露水平。估计的暴露值明显低于不同乙二醇醚的现行监管职业暴露限值 (OEL) 值。研究表明，由于暴露估计值远低于监管 OEL 值，因此从职业清洁产品中吸入乙二醇醚的风险很小。
