Styrene exposure in the fiberglass fabrication industry in Washington State

Abstract

A study was undertaken to identify methods used by the fiberglass fabrication industry in Washington State to reduce worker exposure to styrene vapor. All plants in Washington were surveyed to determine the number of employees, number of exposed employees, degree of exposure, amount of raw material used, type of engineering controls, effectiveness of engineering controls, and respiratory protection practices including personal protection. Data were collected during walk-through and sampling surveys to study approaches of industries of different sizes to the control of employee exposure to styrene vapor. There were approximately 1000 exposed employees in 31 plants with a total employment of 4300. Most plants were involved in boat building and repair, an industry with the highest exposure. In 12 selected plants a total of 592 air samples was collected. Approximately 40% of all samples indicated overexposure.

Mortality of workers exposed to styrene in the manufacture of glass-reinforced plastics.

“…Our estimates of the exposure levels associated with this occupation were based upon measurements made since 1975 at five of the eight factories studied, and they are in broad agreement with those which have been found in similar 2 circumstances by other investigators (10,12,13,15). There is no reason to believe that work conditions were better in the earlier years of the study period or at the factories for which no hygiene data were available.…”

Exposure assessment for study of olfactory function in workers exposed to styrene in the reinforced‐plastics industry

“…There is a modest literature summarizing worker styrene exposures in the reinforced-plastics industry [Schumacher et al, 1981;Ikeda et al, 1982;Crandall and Hartle, 1985;LeMasters et al, 1985;Andersson et al, 1994]. Little additional information has appeared in the published literature in the last decade.…”

“…Interestingly, historical exposures (20 years ago) reported in the literature did not seem to vary substantially from those concentrations measured as a part of this study. An additional historical perspective, primarily from the boat fabrication industry, indicated that only a little more than a third of the exposed employees wore approved respiratory protective equipment (RPE) [Schumacher et al, 1981].…”

Evaluation of the Suitability of Establishing Biological Exposure Indices of Styrene

“…), reinforced polyether resin manufacture, and fiberglass liquid resin coating. In the past, during closed-system operation, the average concentration of airborne styrene was usually less than 10 ppm, whereas it was 40–100 ppm in open operations [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]. Exposure concentration levels according to the type of industry and job of the open operation were as follows.…”