Neurotoxicity Risk Among Workers Exposed to Toluene in Plastic Sacks Industry

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-190-6_31How to use a DOI?

Keywords

neurotoxicity; toluene; risk; workers; exposure

Abstract

Toluene is highly flammable chemical liquid. The most common hazards associated with toluene is inhalation. Toluene can produce fumes which can cause nausea, headaches, unconsciousness and even death. The main target of toluene is the Central Nervous System (CNS). The nervous system exposed to low doses of toluene can cause neurotoxic. This study was using a cross sectional design with 32 printing workers of total sampling. The location of this study took place in one of plastic sacks industry in Sidoarjo, East Java. The measurement of toluene concentration in the air was carried out with a vacuum pump combined with a tube containing activated carbon (active charcoal). Toluene concentration measurements were carried out at four locations and early detection of neurotoxicity risk was carried out using the German version of the Q18 questionnaire. Based on American Conference of Govermental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH, 2011) The Threshold Limit Value of toluene is 20 ppm. The result showed the average concentration of toluene in the printing department is 14.92 ppm, which means it is in safe concentration. Nevertheless, the toluene concentration of location 2 is above the limit of 31.54 ppm. Based on the distribution of questionnaire results, 75% of subjects have a positive symptoms of neurotoxicity risk due to exposure to toluene in the work environment. The most health complaints were difficulty to focus (46.9%), feeling irritable/emotional (43.8%), difficulty to understand the news content or books (40.6%) and the heart beats abnormally without any pressure (40.6%). The workers are require to wear personal protective equipments regularly and the managements are require to do risk assessment to reduce all the health risk in the workplace.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Jihan Faradisha
AU  - Fluorina Oryza Muslim
AU  - Astrina Aulia
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/07/27
TI  - Neurotoxicity Risk Among Workers Exposed to Toluene in Plastic Sacks Industry
BT  - Proceedings of the 2022 ‘AISYIYAH International Conference on Health and Medical Sciences (A-HMS 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 241
EP  - 247
SN  - 2468-5739
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-190-6_31
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-190-6_31
ID  - Faradisha2023
ER  -