Airborne exposure during asbestos abatement of floor tile, wall plaster, and pipe insulation

Our plain-English summary of Airborne exposure during asbestos abatement of floor tile, wall plaster, and pipe insulation, by J.H. Lange (Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 2005).

The study

• Author: J.H. Lange
• Journal: Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
• Published: 2005;74(1):70-2
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This article reported air measurements taken during asbestos removal (abatement) of floor tile, wall plaster and pipe insulation. About 20,000 square feet of floor tile, 5,000 square feet of plaster and 400 lineal feet of insulation were removed, following US OSHA requirements. Personal and area air samples were summarized as TLA and TWA values, terms the surviving text does not define. No individual measurement exceeded the OSHA permissible exposure limit of 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter (TWA). Floor tile removal showed descriptively higher levels than the other work. For floor tile, the estimated probability of exceeding the limit was about 26% by TLA and 5% or less by TWA. The author noted that the small number of samples and the tendency of PCM sampling to overestimate airborne concentrations could explain the floor tile difference. The author also noted that the pipe and combined-material measurements were limited. The author concluded that this study and others suggest asbestos abatement, especially involving chrysotile asbestos, poses little occupational risk, and that the low exposure levels do not support many stringent regulatory requirements for asbestos.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Exposure-measurement study: air sampling (personal and area samples) during asbestos abatement work
• Who was studied: Asbestos abatement work removing about 20,000 square feet of floor tile, 5,000 square feet of plaster and 400 lineal feet of insulation. The location, dates and number of workers are not given in the surviving text.
• Exposure: Airborne fibers released during removal of floor tile, wall plaster and pipe insulation, measured by PCM sampling and compared with the OSHA permissible exposure limit of 0.1 f/cc (TWA). The fiber type in these materials is not stated in the surviving text.
• Main results:
  • No individual exposure measurement exceeded the OSHA permissible exposure limit.
  • Exposure levels during floor tile removal were descriptively higher than for plaster and for the combined floor tile, plaster and pipe insulation work.
  • For floor tile, the estimated probability of exceeding the permissible exposure limit was about 26% by TLA and 5% or less by TWA.
  • There were no outliers among the area or personal sample measurements.
  • Exposure levels were similar to those previously reported elsewhere.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that this study, together with others, suggests asbestos abatement (especially involving chrysotile asbestos) poses little occupational risk, and that the low exposure levels do not support many stringent regulatory requirements for asbestos.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The higher floor tile levels could reflect the small number of samples and the tendency of PCM sampling to greatly overestimate actual airborne asbestos concentrations.
  • The normal distribution of the area samples was likely a result of the small sample number.
  • Measurements for the pipe and the combined floor tile, plaster and pipe insulation work were limited.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Abatement, Pipe Covering.

Related studies

• Asbestos abatement of pipe and floor tile/mastic and comparison of critical plastic barrier controls — J.H. Lange (2004)
• Airborne exposure concentrations during asbestos abatement of ceiling and wall plaster — J.H. Lange, K.W. Thomulka (2002)
• Type and amount of asbestos in floor tile and mastic — J.H. Lange (2006)
• Exposure to airborne asbestos during abatement of ceiling material, window caulking, floor tile and roofing material — J.H. Lange, S.L. Sites, et al. (2008)
• Exposure to airborne asbestos during abatement of ceiling material, window caulking, floor tile, and roofing material — J.H. Lange, S.L. Sites, et al. (2006)
• A meta-analysis of airborne asbestos fiber concentrations from work with or around asbestos-containing floor tile — A.L. Perez, M.L. Nelson, et al. (2018)

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