Indoor and outdoor air quality in street corner kiosks in a large metropolitan area.

Autor: Nezis I; Department of Environment, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, 81100, Greece., Biskos G; Climate and Atmosphere Research Center, The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, 2121, Cyprus.; Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, 2628-CN, the Netherlands., Eleftheriadis K; Environmental Radioactivity Laboratory, N.C.S.R. 'Demokritos', 15310, Ag. Paraskevi, Greece., Fetfatzis P; Environmental Radioactivity Laboratory, N.C.S.R. 'Demokritos', 15310, Ag. Paraskevi, Greece.; Department of Industrial Design and Production Engineering, University of West Attica, 12243, Egaleo- Athens, Greece., Popovicheva O; Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University, 119991, Moscow, Russia., Kalantzi OI; Department of Environment, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, 81100, Greece.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Heliyon [Heliyon] 2024 May 16; Vol. 10 (10), pp. e31340. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 May 16 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e31340
Abstrakt: Poor air quality in workplaces constitutes a great concern on human health as a good fraction of our time is spent at work. In Greece, very unique workplaces are the street corner kiosks, which are freestanding boxes placed on sidewalks next to city streets and vehicular traffic, where one can find many consumer goods. As such, its employees are exposed to both outdoor and indoor air pollutants. Very few studies have examined the occupational exposure of kiosk workers to air pollutants, and thus the magnitude of this unique indoor and outdoor exposure remains unknown. The objective of this study is to investigate and compare the levels of indoor and outdoor particulate matter (PM 10 and PM 2.5 ), ultrafine particles (UFPs) and black carbon (BC) in different kiosks located in Athens, Greece, in urban-traffic and urban-background environments. Continuous measurements of the above-mentioned pollutants were carried out on a 24-h basis over 7 consecutive days at three kiosks from September to October 2019. Indoor PM 10 concentrations in the urban kiosk ranged from 19.0 to 44.0 μg/m 3 , PM 2.5 values ranged from 14.0 to 33.0 μg/m 3 , whereas BC concentrations ranged from 1.2 to 7.0 μg/m 3 and UFPs from almost 9.5 to 47.0 × 10 3  pt/cm 3 . Outdoor PM 10 and PM 2.5 measurements ranged from 29.0 to 59.0 μg/m 3 and from 22.0 to 39.0 μg/m 3 , respectively. BC outdoor concentrations ranged from 1.1 to 2.2 μg/m 3 . The mean hazard quotient (HQ) for PM 10 (4.9) and PM 2.5 (4.7) among all participants was >1. The health risk of exposure to PM 10 and PM 2.5 was found to be at moderate hazard levels, although in some cases we observed HQ values higher than 10 due to high PM 10 and PM 2.5 concentrations in the kiosks. Overall our study indicates that people working at kiosks can be exposed to very high concentrations on particulate pollution depending on a number of factors including the traffic that strongly depends on location and the time of the day.
Competing Interests: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:Olga-Ioanna Kalantzi was an Associate Editor of Heliyon Environment until March 2024.
(© 2024 The Authors.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz: