• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.18-27
• /
• 2020

Objectives: For testing asbestos stabilizer products which are used for the maintenance and management of asbestos-containing materials, durability assessment should accompany the evaluation of basic properties and performance. Therefore, in this study we designed a testing method and constructed a database of durability performance, thereby providing basic data for reliability studies of asbestos stabilizer. Methods: Since the ceiling materials targeted in this study are interior materials, test conditions of 95% relative humidity and 60℃ temperature were designed in consideration of the effect of high relative humidity in summer and seasonal indoor temperatures. Plate-shaped specimens treated with asbestos stabilizers were maintained in a thermo-hygrostat for 5, 10, and 20 days, and then the asbestos scattering prevention rate was measured by air erosion testing. Results: The scattering concentration tended to increase with time under the single humidity condition, and exceeded the indoor air quality standard of 0.01 f/cc, during the 20 days of maintenance. On the other hand, there was little change according to the temperature condition. In the case of a complex condition with temperature and humidity, the results were similar to the humidity test, but the scattering concentration increased more sharply at 20 days. Conclusions: The main deterioration factor that affects the durability of asbestos stabilizer is humidity, and the deterioration is caused by a mechanism in which the stabilizer coated on the surface is re-dissolved by moisture and evaporates or the coating layer is peeled off, which is accelerated by high temperatures.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.61-66
• /
• 2020

As asbestos-containing buildings are getting older, asbestos deconstruction works are increasing. As a result, accident risks such as falls, cuts, electric shocks, and suffocation are increasing. Existing studies are mostly about health management and institutional policy research and there is little research on work risk. So workplace risk assessments that are easily applicable in the field are required to be applied. Sealing is the first process of asbestos deconstruction and is the first step to ensure worker's safety. Job Safety Analysis(JSA) and Checklist were used to identify the risk factors and to calculate the level of the risk. By comparing the two risk assessment tools, it was figured out that the JSA is appropriate for the initial process and change of work procedure while Checklist is appropriate for repetitive work. Because the sealing process is sort and simple, it is unlikely to cause serious injury. But since the risk of falling and cuts are exist, safety education and supervision are necessary to maintain a safe working environment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.139-145
• /
• 2011

Objectives: This investigation is purposed to evaluate the airborne asbestos concentrations in the public buildings having asbestos containing materials(ACMs) in Seoul. Methods: The Seoul Metropolitan Government carried out an asbestos survey to the city-owned public buildings to identify the level of risk exposure, classified into low, moderate and high risk. To evaluate the airborne concentration of asbestos, 11 sampling sites in ten buildings based on the survey were selected. The air samples from the eleven sites were analyzed by Phase Contrast Microscopy(PCM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and compared the analytical results from the both. Results: 1. The airborne fiber concentrations by PCM were less than the detection limit($7f/mm^2$) in 9(82%) out of 11 sampling sites. The highest concentration was 0.0043 f/cc, but it was below the guideline value for indoor air quality(0.01 f/cc), proposed by the Ministry of Environment, Korea. 2. In two sampling sites, having moderate risk level, the chrysotile was identified and showed it's concentrations of 0.0102 s/cc and 0.0058 s/cc, less than $5{\mu}m$ lengths. 3. The ACMs identified in the two sampling sites were a packing material(65% of chrysotile) in mechanical area and a thermal system insulation(5% of chrysotile) in a boiler room. Having more possibility of asbestos emission in the mechanical area, it would be required to set up and carry out the asbestos management plan. Conclusions: Based on the result of this study, the airborne asbestos concentrations in the public buildings with ACMs were generally lower than the guideline value for indoor air quality. There are widespread concerns about the possible health risk resulting from the presence of airborne asbestos fibers in the public buildings. Most of the previous studies about airborne asbestos analysis in Korea were performed based on PCM method that asbestos and non-asbestos fibers are counted together. In the public and commercial buildings, having ACMs, it is suggested that the asbestos be analyzed by TEM method to identify asbestos due to concerns about asbestos exposure to workers and unspecified people.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.72-81
• /
• 2015

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the exposure and risk assessment of residents near asbestos mines in Korea. Methods: To assess asbestos types and airborne concentrations, air monitoring was performed in the neighborhoods of Kwangcheon (KC) and Sinsuk (SS) mines, which were leading South Korean mines in the past. In addition, activity-based-sampling (ABS) of residents' particular activities were conducted in order to estimate the Excess Lifetime Cancer Risks (ELCRs) for the residents. Conclusions: The average concentration of airborne asbestos in KC was 0.0014 f/cc and 0.0015 f/cc by PCM and TEM, respectively. In SS it was equal at 0.0012 f/cc by PCM and TEM. No statistically significant difference was found in the average concentration of airborne asbestos between the two mines. The average asbestos concentration of ABS was 0.0048 f/cc (PCM) and 0.0042 f/cc (TEM) in KC, while it was 0.0137 f/cc (PCM) and 0.0125 f/cc (TEM) in SS. It was found that the average asbestos concentration of ABS in SS was statistically significantly higher than that of KC (p<0.01). The results of ELCRs by scenario in KC showed that the scenarios of bicycle, car, weed control, weed whacking, child playing in the dirt, and physical training fell within $1{\times}0^{-6}-1{\times}10^{-4}$, which is the acceptable range of ELCR. The scenarios of motorcycle, walker, digging, and field sweeping, however, exceeded the acceptable range. In SS, only the scenario of car fell within the acceptable range, while all of the other scenarios exceeded the acceptable range.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.34 no.4
• /
• pp.279-284
• /
• 2008

This paper aims to provide basic data for work environment control, prevention of worker exposure to asbestos and improvement of air quality to protect workers ‘health after measuring the level of airborne asbestos and workers' exposure in a shipbuilding repair businesses. For this study, a total of 27 samples were collected from 27 workers who had been exposed to asbestos during engine, piping, boiler and other manufacturing processes in 'A' Shipbuilding Repair Company in Gyeongnam. This research was conducted from Oct. 1 to 30, 2007 and had the following results: The target group (27 workers) consisted of all men with an average age of 35.9 years and 6.6 years of work on average. Among them, fifteen 15 (55.6%) were smokers. In terms of their duties at work, there were 12 plumbing repair engineers (44.4%), 8 boiler repair engineers (29.6%) and 7 engine engineers (25.9%). The geometric mean concentration of airborne asbestos was 0.004 f/cc. A total of 4 samples exceeded the exposure limit. In particular, three exceeded the legal limit by more than double, which means that some workers have been highly exposed to asbestos. In terms of the concentration of asbestos fibres by work process, plumbing repair was the highest (0.0071 f/cc($0.001{\sim}0.57\;f/cc$)) while boiler was the lowest (0.0015 f/cc($0.001{\sim}0.007\;f/cc$)). Based on this study, proper action needs to be taken as soon as possible to protect workers from the threat of asbestos.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.259-266
• /
• 2011

Project owner, asbestos removal specialist, experts on asbestos removal work, as counter parts to be defined in the study to make out research goals have been asked with questionnaire survey and replied with 65, 275, 32 cases, respectively. And additionally, direct interview 73 sheets have been collected to find out current status of required engineers and equipments assigned and provided to the field, from them, three(3) concerned parties. Questionnaire subjects are composed of common items, reasonable unit cost, need of separate contract-awarding system, status of performing standard contract, status of providing legal engineers and equipments. Concentrated review of two~three questions by subject has been made to find out and compare idea results between three(3) concerned parties. First, legal and practical work status survey have been made to determine reasonability of introducing separate contract-awarding system, as a part of ensuring reasonable unit work cost. And then, two different status have been compared and there is introduction possibility of separate contract-awarding system, it is found out. The possibility of separate contract also has been confirmed by comparison of domestic legal grounds. Justificating grounds to introduce separate contract-awarding system have been shown. Standard contract status between asbestos removal specialists has been compared using two cases of providing removal work contract and receiving it. It is shown that case of 50 percent or less contains 38.5% when they receive contract, but only 10 percent reduction of original contract amount has been made when they provide it. It means that asbestos removal specialists do not keep occupational safety and health regulations.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.22 no.12
• /
• pp.1579-1587
• /
• 2013

This study was performed to evaluate the asbestos exposure levels and to calculate excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR) for the risk assessment of the asbestos fibers released from asbestos-cement slate roofing (ASR) building. Total number of ASR buildings was into 21,267 in Busan, and 82.03 percent of the buildings was residential houses, and 43.61 percent of the buildings was constructed in 1970s. For this study, ten buildings were selected randomly among the ASR buildings. The range of airborne asbestos concentration in the selected ten ASR buildings was from 0.0016 to 0.0067 f/mL, and the concentration around no-admitted ASR buildings was higher than that around admitted buildings. The ELCR based on US EPA IRIS (integrated risk information system) model is within 3.5E-05 ~ 1.5E-04 levels, and the ELCR of no-admitted ASR buildings was higher than 1.0E-04 (one person per million) level that is considered a more aggressive approach to mitigate risk. These results indicate that the cancer risk from ASR buildings is higher than other buildings, and systematic public management is required for control of no-admitted ASR buildings within near future.

• Fire Science and Engineering
• /
• v.24 no.5
• /
• pp.68-78
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study, fire officials during the field activities find causes fugitive dust of containing asbestos is the seriousness of the phenomenon is a threat case and through questionnaires, during on-site activities to prevent exposure to asbestos is effectively. Analysis of the relationship to field activities of fire officials and about the dangers of asbestos dust, asbestos cancer caused by asbestos, and to protect fire officials from the same disease like malignant mesothelioma, by varying the conditions of irrational, fire officials at the scene activities in advance of a deadly hazard is aimed to eliminate through optimization of organizational management and a safe and pleasant working conditions for fire officials through the deadly hazards at the scene of action is aimed to obviate. Also according to asbestos exposure by wearing protective equipment as well as thoroughly strengthen firefighting, firefighting awards to recognize the seriousness of the hazard factors, disease and provide compensation to the legal system, for diseases not yet recognized officially recognized by disaster supplemented by institutional, fire officials to improve morale and working conditions, etc. versus expectations is to improve public services.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.205-212
• /
• 2020

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the needs and improvement measures of the risk assessment system through a survey of asbestos abatement companies. Methods: This study prepared a questionnaire that includes improvement measures for the risk assessment system(six questions) and the necessity of a risk assessment system for asbestos abatement(one question). The questionnaire was sent to 2,170 asbestos abatement companies and returned by 83 companies(return rate = 3.8%). We conducted frequency analysis, ANOVA, and Chi-squared testing at the 5% significance level. Results: This study analyzed the survey results and identified six main opinions on the risk assessment system and improvement measures. First, giving an advantage to companies with a high grade(S and A grades) in public bidding and/or qualification screening showed a similar preference(agree: 50.6%, disagree: 49.4%). Second, 57.6% of the respondents wanted to allow air showers along with water showers for low risk asbestos work. However, 23.2% of the respondents asserted that only a water shower should be allowed since there is no scientific evidence supporting the removal of asbestos by air shower. Third, in order to prevent missing the enrollment of workers, simply submitting a change report should be allowed when any worker is changed (40.0%). Fourth, 43% of the respondents answered that they did not know how to calculate the proper number of negative pressure units. The reasons given were a lack of guidelines or standards(38.9%), inconvenience (36.1%), and absence of education(25%). Fifth, the respondents who were favorable toward the necessity of a risk assessment system gave higher scores compared to unfavorable respondents on the necessity of the management of workers' work history(favorable respondent = 3.96 out of 5, unfavorable respondent = 2.68) and the necessity of professional training for workers(favorable respondent = 3.71, unfavorable respondent = 2.56). Finally, the respondents favorable toward a risk assessment system showed higher scores on the awareness of calculating the proper number of negative pressure units(4.79) compared to unfavorable respondents(3.3). Conclusions: The opinions of asbestos abatement companies identified through the survey in this study can be usefully utilized as fundamental information to improve the risk assessment system.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.47 no.5
• /
• pp.497-505
• /
• 2014

This study is for discrimination between asbestiform and non-asbestiform based on size characteristics of tremolite-actinolite fibers in soils from a closed asbestos mine, Jecheon, Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea. Soils and tremolite asbestos rocks were collected from a closed asbestos mine area. The dimensions of fibers with minimum $5{\mu}m$ in length and 3:1 in aspect ratio were measured using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and compared to the known tremolite populations ranging from asbestiform to non-asbestiform. The geometric means of width of soils, asbestos rocks and National Institute for Standard and Technology (NIST) and Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) reference samples were $1.2{\mu}m$, $0.3-0.6{\mu}m$, $1.3{\mu}m$ and $0.2{\mu}m$, respectively. The geometric means of aspect ratio of soils, asbestos rocks and NIST and HSL reference samples were 7.3, 13.7-30.1, 7.2 and 37.8, respectively. The population of tremolite-actinolite fibers from soils compared to known asbestiform and non-asbestiform tremolite was lack of thin and high aspect ratio fibers. Upper results suggest that tremolite-actinolite fibers in soils cannot be classified into a commercial grade asbestos. The tremolite-actinolite fibers do not mainly appear to be the result of contamination from distance asbestos sources by wind. For the management and control of asbestos in soils, size distributions of amphiboles should be incorporated into asbestos survey results of soils.