Occupational hazards in printing industry

Abstract

© 2016, Islamic Azad University (IAU). This paper, through certain printing techniques, examines the types of occupational pollutants and the adverse impacts of the printing process. Also, it proposes the measures for better preservation and environmental protection. The paper analyzes the results of the quantitative identification of hazardous materials from various printing techniques: pad, screen, offset, flexographic, and digital. The study included the analysis of waste printing inks and purification of printing wastewater with adsorption methods. Besides that, the preliminary monitoring of ambient indoor air quality was performed. The multiple regression analysis was applied on the obtained experimental results, in order to determine the mutual correlation between the ozone and the total volatile organic compounds and microclimate parameters. It was observed that a quantitative correlation exists between the investigated occupational hazards, which also indicate the strength of the agreement. The obtained results could be useful to evaluate the tendency of hazardous air pollutants in printing industries worldwide.