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VEDLUFT -
Exposure to air pollutants at domestic wood burning, a study before and after
change to district heating.
Small scale
wood burning is assumed to contribute about half of the Swedish emissions of
fine particles, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and volatile organic compounds
(VOC). Clean air and reduction of carcinogenic compounds are important aims for
Swedish environmental policy. The health risk of exposure to fine particles has
received increased attention in the past decade. Estimates on emissions are
based on sparse experimental data. There is even less information on the
contribution to environmental concentrations, and none whatsoever on
contributions to human exposure. Thus risk estimates are extremely uncertain.
The project’s
aim is to fill the gap of knowledge, as illustrated below, on the contribution
of domestic wood burning to local background levels of fine particles (PM2.5),
and residential exposure to PAH in a small community (Hagfors), where this kind
of heating is common. Annoyance reactions will be surveyed too, using a postal
questionnaire. The improvement, if any, will be studied after the building of a
new district heating system.
In an ongoing
study in Hagfors, personal measurements of various pollutants have been made in
subjects randomly selected from an area with domestic wood burning and a
reference area with district heating. Measurements of PAH (gas and particle
phases) were performed in 30 subjects in 2000, using active sampling in
bed-rooms as well as outdoors at two stationary sites. Analyses of PAHs are
performed at Stockholm University, and a large number of PAHs will be searched
for (8), including those proposed as markers for wood burning.
Measurements of
PM10 and PM2.5 were made by IVL in
the wood burning and reference areas during the same six-week period as the
personal exposure measurements. Detailed information was collected on heating
system, and its use, as well a diary on activities. In addition, a postal
questionnaire on residence, and possible annoyance reactions from wood burning
or traffic, was sent to about 600 subjects aged 20–60 years in the same two
areas.
In the present
projects all sampling (PM10, PM2.5, NO2, and
PAH), as well as the postal questionnaire is repeated in 2002 after a new
district heating system has been introduced in the wood burning area.
Publication:
Molnar P, Gustafson P, Johannesson S, Boman J, Barregård L, Sällsten G. Domestic
wood burning and PM2.5 trace elements: Personal exposure, indoor and outdoor
levels. Atmospheric Environ 2005:39:2659-2669. (pdf)
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