Finishing textile workers

The National Occupational Exposure Survey (NOES), conducted from 1981 to 1983, indicated that 1,329,332 workers employed in various professions were potentially exposed to formaldehyde in the United States (NIOSH 1995b). The NOES database does not contain information on the frequency, concentration, or duration of exposure the survey provides only estimates of workers potentially exposed to the chemical in the workplace. OSHA has estimated that in the late 1980s over 2 million workers in over 112,000 firms were exposed to formaldehyde about 45% of these workers are estimated to be in the garment industry. About 1.9 million were exposed to levels of formaldehyde between 0.1 ppm and 0.5 ppm (mainly in apparel, furniture, paper mills, and plastic molding) approximately 123,000 were exposed to levels of formaldehyde between 0.5 and 0.75 ppm (mainly in apparel, textile finishing, furniture, laboratories, and foundries) and about 84,000 were exposed to between 0.75 and 1 ppm (mainly in apparel, furniture, and foundries) (OSHA 1996). 

Indoor air quality can be adversely affected by materials that emit pollutants (primary emitters), as well as by materials that sorb and reemit pollutants [16]. In the United States, the Occnpational Safety and Health Administration (USHA) proposed an indoor air qnality mie that will affect 21 million workers and that will require the development and implementation of indoor air compliance programs [20]. At this time, primary emissions from several process residues (chemical finishing, dyeing, printing, assembly, and prodnct fabrication) are under study [16, 20]. In addition, sorption/reemission characteristics of textile materials are of interest. Tests of air emissions from various products including draperies have been done. In one stndy, drapes were found to emit indoor air pollutants... 

Urea-formaldehyde resin and melamine-formalde-hyde resin are used as glues in the wood industries to make furniture press plates. Despite a low constant release of formaldehyde from these plates into the indoor air, the health effect for individuals living or working in the room is way overestimated in our opinion. Construction workers are also exposed to formaldehyde resins in modern building materials. Textile finishes are another use for these formaldehyde resins, but this does not fit into our discussion in this chapter (Fowler et al. 1992). Even cosmetics may contain PTBP-FR as Angelini and others have shown previously (Angelini et al. 1993). Both resins are currently available from Chemotechnique, Sweden, urea-FR as a 10% petrolatum and melamine-FR as a 7% preparation in the textile colour and finishes series. 

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