Pollution of the environment and building interiors during asbestos removal as a result of lack of negative pressure in the working areas

Our plain-English summary of Pollution of the environment and building interiors during asbestos removal as a result of lack of negative pressure in the working areas, by A. Obmiński (Scientific Reports, 2024).

The study

• Author: A. Obmiński
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Published: 2024;14(1):21185
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

The paper presents examples of the consequences of the lack of negative pressure in the work zone during asbestos removal. The asbestos fibre concentrations generated in those work zones were relatively low. This was due to the leakage in barriers restricting the work zone. Therefore the asbestos content in the outside air, near the renovated rooms was increasing. In the cases discussed, these works resulted in short-term pollution of the building's outdoor air to a depth of up to 15 m. Such contamination can cover the entire interior of the building. This may lead to long-term retention of asbestos fibre in the facility, despite the completion of asbestos removal. For example, non-friable asbestos-cement sheets removal in those work conditions increased indoor air by contamination up to 3000 f/m3 (outside the work zone). In the case of removing friable asbestos inside the building type "LIPSK", indoor air contamination locally was up 21,000-51,000 f/m3, and outside the work zone to 18,000-28,900 f/m3. These values are above the average concentration of asbestos fibres in the same type of buildings (< 300-400 f/m3) in regular use.

© 2024. The Author(s).

In plain English

The author reported air measurements from asbestos removal and demolition jobs (2000–2019) whose work zones lacked proper negative pressure, the lower air pressure meant to keep dust inside. The cases involved asbestos-cement panels on a sports hall and a high-rise facade, asbestos-cement pipes with chrysotile and crocidolite, friable and non-friable materials in a "LIPSK" building, damaged boards in another LIPSK building with no removal, and a small building's demolition. In the LIPSK removal, "clean" areas beside the work zone reached 28,000–51,000 fibres per cubic metre on the renovated floor, and up to 28,900 on another floor. High-rise rooms with closed windows averaged below 300 over 21 measurements (range 140–300), though a table shows higher averages not clearly split into indoor and outdoor. Demolition raised levels 15 m away about seven- to eightfold; a school 30 m away showed no significant change. The author concluded that missing negative pressure spreads contamination through and beyond the building and lowers work-zone readings, so effectiveness cannot be reliably assessed. Area samples read lower than breathing-zone samples, the author noted, and these short-term measurements cannot directly estimate health risk.

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: Descriptive case series of air-monitoring measurements (area sampling) taken by the author during selected faulty asbestos removal and demolition jobs, analysed by optical microscopy (phase-contrast plus polarized light)
• Who was studied: Five cases (one with two parts, 4a and 4b) in buildings: a large sports hall, a 30-storey building facade, a drinking water treatment plant, five-storey "LIPSK"-type buildings, and a small "MOA"-type building with a school 30 m away. In Case 4b, a LIPSK building with damaged friable boards was measured without any asbestos removal. The works took place between 2000 and 2019. The author is based at the Building Research Institute, Warsaw, Poland.
• Exposure: Airborne respirable asbestos fibres. Sources were non-friable asbestos-cement panels (the facade panels contained 12% chrysotile), asbestos-cement pipes (about 23% asbestos: 15% chrysotile and 8% crocidolite), friable "SOKALIT" boards together with non-friable asbestos-cement sandwich panels in the LIPSK building, and friable materials during demolition.
• Main results:
  • LIPSK building (Case 4a): in a place adjacent to the work area on the floor being renovated, treated as a "clean" area, leakage over three workdays ranged from 28,000 to 51,000 f/m3
  • LIPSK building (Case 4a): on a non-renovated floor (third floor), leakage ranged from 13,600 to 28,900 f/m3
  • LIPSK building (Case 4a): negative pressure in the work zone was 2 Pa instead of the 20 Pa it should have reached
  • LIPSK building (Case 4a): about one week after the work, concentrations exceeded the German TRGS 519 post-removal limit of 500 f/m3 by 7.6 to 26 times
  • High-rise facade (Case 2): during facade removal, indoor air in rooms with closed windows averaged below 300 f/m3 over 21 measurements, with a range of 140–300. Table 3 lists higher stage averages that the extracted text does not clearly assign to indoor or outdoor air.
  • High-rise facade (Case 2): outdoor area samples on the scaffolding were 800–3000 f/m3 in the first month of work
  • Water treatment plant pipes (Case 3): indoor air averaged 8000 f/m3 (range 6000–20,000); personal samples were 20,000–80,000 f/m3
  • Sports hall (Case 1): outdoor air 15–80 m from the building had values about 3–7 times lower than indoor air
  • Small building demolition (Case 5): at the peak of work, levels 15 m from the work zone rose about seven- to eightfold compared with before
  • Small building demolition (Case 5): no significant variations were detected inside the school building 30 m away
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that insufficient negative pressure disperses contaminants throughout the building and outside it, lowers concentrations measured in the work zone, and makes it impossible to reliably assess the effectiveness of the work
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Area samples are not equivalent to measurements from workers' breathing zones and are significantly lower
  • Optical microscopy values are on average about half of those recorded with electron microscopy
  • The method's limit of quantification is 300 f/m3
  • The author's data cover short time slices and cannot be used to estimate health risk directly

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Friable.

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