Industrial Hygiene and Air Quality Essay

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Industrial Hygiene

Indoor air quality testing is necessary to ensure that the air in working environments is free from pollutants, or that if there are pollutants that workers can take the precautions necessary to protect themselves. This paper will examine the air quality readings from the test site, outlining the issues that may be present.

The first thing to consider is the role that humidity plays in air quality testing. It has been established that humidity is a factor in air quality perception. Furthermore, both temperature and humidity have been established as key variables in emissions from things like paints and varnishes, from which emissions are greater under conditions of higher humidity (Haghighat & De Bellis, 1998). In this test, relative humidity was a moderate 62-78%, getting high but still not at very high levels.

With the first reading, carbon dioxide, OSHA guidelines does not issue specific air quality standards (OSHA, 2015). Carbon dioxide is specifically cited as a pollutant class by the Centers for Disease Control, and it is therefore necessary to ensure that a site has sufficient ventilation to remove carbon dioxide from the air. Carbon dioxide is a natural by-product of the breathing process, but some areas without air flow can end up with high levels of CO2 buildup. This building saw 1200-1300 ppm of CO2. At this level, while technically acceptable, people will notice that the air is not very good. In Minnesota, CO2 is not considered to be at unsafe levels until 10,000 ppm (MDH, 2015).

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There has been a lot of data regarding safe levels of exposure to airborne formaldehyde. Formaldehyde in the air is not only an irritant but can also cause certain type of cancer (Golden, 2011). Indoor, for all individuals, the safe level is regarded to be 0.1ppm. The current reading of 0.05 ppm is within the acceptable bounds at which individuals are protected from both irritation and cancer hazards (Golden, 2011).

Another hazard is airborne mold spores. The inside level was recorded at 253-312ppm. Mold spores are almost always present in our air, more so outdoors than indoors, but their presence at some level is to be expected. Furthermore, there are over 10,000 types of mold spores, and they are not all bad. As such, there are no federal standards for mold spores either indoors or out (OSHA, 2013). The level recorded for indoors is well below the accepted 1 million spores per cubic meter (MBL, 2015). The outdoor mold exposure levels are generally in line with natural norms, which often run into the thousands of spores per cubic meter. A norm is that the indoor level is around 30% of the outdoor level, but in this case the indoor level is lower than that, and probably lower than might generally be expected, which might cause one to double-check the reading.

For the most part, the….....

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