Investigation And Analysis Of Occupational Hazards In E-Waste Processing Enterprises Of Jiangsu Province

[Research Background]E-waste has been the fastest growing part of the waste in the world.E-waste pollution has become one of the world’s most concerned environmental issues as well.E-waste processing enterprises have emerged as the times require.E-waste has complex components,including dozens of metals such as lead and mercury,polyvinyl chloride,polyethylene,polystyrene,and other plastics.It also contains brominated flame retardants,toners,and surface coatings.During the dismantling process of e-waste,it can cause pollution to the workplace environment,thereby endangering the lives and health of workers and surrounding residents.The environmental pollution caused by e-waste disposal has received global consensus and attention,but the occupational hazards suffered by employees in the process of dismantling and processing e-waste are often ignored.Occupational exposure and hazard characteristics have been rarely studied.Occupational hazard exposure and control measures for e-waste recycling and processing enterprises are basically blank in China,and there is no industry guideline.It is necessary to comprehensively identify and evaluate the hazard exposure of workers in different production processes,and then propose targeted preventive control measures,so as to protect the health of workers.[Objective]To identify and to analyze major occupational hazard factors generating from production process in E-Waste Processing Enterprises of Jiangsu Province,then to evaluate workers’exposure route,characteristics and quantity.To comprehensively understand the production processes,production equipment,engineering protection,personal protection,health surveillance system,sanitary auxiliary facilities and occupational health management status.Finally to explore protection and improvement measures for protecting workers’health.[Methods]We collected data by occupational investigation and detecting,analyzed protective effects of occupational health engineering protection facilities,evaluated workers’exposure-level of occupational factors and current status of occupational health management in enterprises.[Results]The main occupational hazard factors in E-Waste Processing Enterprises contained noise,dust,heavy metals,flame retardants,Mercury,fluoride,cyanide,sodium hydroxide,hydrochloric acid and hydrogen nitrate.Exceeding-standards appeared in dust,noise and Lead.The concentration values of 13 dust samples exceeded the standard,the over-standard rate was 5.3%.Dust exceeding the standard mainly occurred in plastic crushing and packing,TV/computer disassembly line,washing machine disassembly line and refrigerator disassembly line.The maximum concentration of dust was 269.33 mg/m~3,which exceeded 33.7 times.It occurred in plastic crushing and packing posts.8 samples of lead exceeded the standard,the over-standard rate was 5.5%.Over-standard lead all occurred in TV disassembly lines.The maximum concentration of lead was 0.1930 mg/m~3,which exceeded 3.9 times,occured in cutting explosion-proof belt posts.Except for heavy metal lead,the results of other toxicants all met the limits.Various components such as flame retardants,plasticizers,pesticides were detected by qualitative analysis of air samples collected during refrigerator crushing and plastic crushing.86 individual noise detection data exceeded the standard,the over-standard rate was 69.9%.Among them,the Over-standard rate of the plastic crushing line was 100%,the television disassembly line and the computer disassembly line were over 90%,the washing machine disassembly line was over 80%.There were no significant effects of occupational health engineering protection facilities,wind speed test showed the pass rate was only 36%.The current status of occupational health management in enterprises was also not ideal.The distribution and wearing of personal protective equipment,the implementation of occupational health testing and evaluation,the implementation of occupational health surveillance,the setting of auxiliary health rooms and the setting of occupational health management systems in most enterprises did not meet the requirements.[Conclusion]E-waste processing enterprises have many problems on occupational health.They have serious dust hazards in the production process,heavy metal pollution problems have not been found and valued by enterprises,noise prevention and control measures are insufficient,flame retardant exposure is definite but awareness is lack,actual effectiveness of ventilation and dust removal facilities is poor,occupational health management is weak,the declining of corporate processing capacity leads to increased hazards of civil dismantling.Aiming at the existing problems,we put forward suggestions from three aspects of national policy,enterprises and workers,so as to promote the development of enterprises and protect the health of workers.