Login 
Although you can’t open a window or pop outside for air at 30,000 feet, passenger aircraft cabins have many similarities with modern offices in the environmental problems they face. Both aircraft and office buildings attempt to balance energy efficiency with other needs such as adequate ventilation, clean air, and acceptable temperature and humidity levels. In both environments the goal of energy efficiency is achieved by decreasing the amount of outside air drawn into the ventilation system and hoping for an acceptable balance between health and efficiency.
Energy savings can be made as the proportion of recirculated air is increased, but the cost is an increase in potential health risks. Many chemical contaminants which recycle with the air emanate from indoor sources like carpeting, upholstery, wood panelling and insect and rodent control measures. Copy machines and fluorescent lighting generate ozone, wood products such as shelving and desks can give off formaldehyde, and cleaning chemicals and adhesives may omit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which cause chronic and acute health symptoms at higher concentrations.
Organic materials such as viruses, bacteria, fungi and pollen are behind many indoor air quality issues. Moist areas in buildings can be breeding grounds for contaminants, with water delivered by condensation pans in building ventilation ducts and from the evaporation coils of cooling systems. Many biological contaminants are carried in by people, and as office buildings and passenger aircraft are amongst the most populated environments we endure for any length of time, the average person spends 90% of their time indoors, the need for vigilance is constant.
Health issues for high-flying passengers and crew are frequently unreported and difficult to attribute to a particular source, many airline operations now undertake regular air quality testing on aircraft.
However, office workers are permanently located within a building and patterns of health issues associated with unhealthy environments are quickly made clear either vocally, or in the statistics for absenteeism, poor performance or staff turnover.
In the 1970s building design went through an evolution which was motivated by an energy crises and the need to increase efficiency. Structures were made to be airtight and ventilation was reduced in a way that outdoor air would be limited. Having less ventilation in these older buildings has been found to be a primary cause for so called sick building syndrome (SBS), and one well publicised ‘victim’ at the time was St John’s House in Bootle, Merseyside.
In the UK, The Inland Revenue moved 2,000 tax workers into the 19 storey office building in 1981, and after just 11 years they decided that demolishing it was the only way to end the building’s notoriety as an unhealthy and ugly place to work. Half of the building’s occupants suffered from influenza-like symptoms throughout its short life, and the authorities eventually decided to build the new £14m St John’s House next door rather than find the £40m required to solve the problem. The building’s demolition and the reasons for it were widely publicised in 2001, and the term SBS came back into popular use.
The syndrome is known to reduce employee productivity and reliability, and high levels of absenteeism, is a core symptom. Often when employees work in a ‘sick environment’ they feel a sense of relief after leaving work, and the problem is often suspected when employees continually complain of ongoing headaches, nausea, coughing, dry or itchy skin, problems concentrating on their work, eye and nose irritation, dry throat, fatigue, and increased sensitivity to odours. They may experience acute negative physical and mental effects which appear to be associated with time spent in a contaminated area when no specific illness or cause can be identified.
The World Health Organization (WHO) now acknowledges SBS as a medical condition where symptoms are only present in the workplace and decline when outside the building. It estimates that 30% of all buildings worldwide which are new or recently refurbished are also victims of SBS. In some cases these problems go away over time, but often they do not.
The range of contaminants found in the atmosphere of affected buildings is diverse, and the symptoms associated with them are equally wide ranging. Headaches, eye, nose or throat irritation, dry mucous membranes, dry skin, frequent nasal symptoms, breathing difficulties, abnormal taste sensation, distorted sense of smell, tiredness, dizziness, lack of concentration and nausea have all been attributed to SBS. The diagnosis of the syndrome would also be supported by the presence of colleagues within the same environment also experiencing such symptoms with the same temporal pattern.
Symptoms recognised by the WHO include:
- Lethargy (57%)
- Stuffy nose (47%)
- Headache (43%)
- Runny nose (31%)
- Itchy eyes (28%)
- Dry eyes (27%)
- Flu-like symptoms (23%)
The common fundamental indication of SBS is that all the symptoms improve after leaving the building.
In researching a suspected case it is important for the building manager to exclude ‘normal’ allergic reactions and the presence of general infections such as colds or flu and even severe infections such as Legionnaire’s disease or tuberculosis. Temperature and humidity are very important parameters and rapid changes in any of these can also trigger symptoms of ill health.
Resolving the problem runs deeper than simply increasing the inflow of fresh air. Factors influencing air quality include the design, construction methods and materials, equipment in use, the operation and maintenance of buildings and all indoor spaces as well as ambient outdoor air quality and the occupants’ preferences or activities. Facilities and building services mangers are responsible for indoor air quality and for compliance with the relevant sections of the Health & Safety at Work Regulations and the Control of substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations.
Social, financial and legal implications for any company are considerable. Recent studies estimate that absenteeism and resulting loss of production costs UK industry in the region of £500 million, and sickness alone costs most companies 1% of their turnover. The risk of litigation is also a major consideration too, and the right to an acceptable air quality environment is widely understood and any shortcomings can lead to expensive litigation.
However, employee health is not the only consideration when looking at air quality issues. There are additional benefits to be had in energy management and plant running costs from monitoring internal thermal, gaseous and particulate environments regularly and correctly.
WHO guideline levels for some typical contaminants are as follows:
- CO < 5 ppm
- CO 2 < 1500 ppm
- Formaldehyde < 0.1 ppm
- NO 2 < 0.15 ppm
- Ozone < 0.08 ppm
- Respirable dust < 0.15 ppm
- Bacteria < 1500 cfu/m 3
- Fungi / Yeasts < 750 cfu/m 3
The WHO also publishes some fundamental principles regarding indoor air quality, and although aimed at public buildings they can be seen as standards to which a responsible private sector organisation should also acknowledge and strive to meet.
Principle 1 Under the principle of the human right to health , everyone has the right to breathe healthy indoor air.
Principle 2 Under the principle of respect for autonomy (“self determination”) , everyone has the right to adequate information about potentially harmful exposures, and to be provided with effective means for controlling at least part of their indoor exposures, this is also the case under the COSHH regulations).
Principle 3 Under the principle of non- malfeasance (“doing no harm”) , no agent at a concentration that exposes any occupant to an unnecessary health risk should be introduced into indoor air, again COSHH.
Principle 4 Under the principle of beneficence (“doing good”) , all individuals, groups and organizations associated with a building, whether private, public, or governmental, bear responsibility to advocate or work for acceptable air quality for the occupants (i.e. design effective buildings and services in the first place).
Principle 5 Under the principle of social justice , the socioeconomic status of occupants should have no bearing on their access to healthy indoor air, but health status may determine special needs for some groups.
Principle 6 Under the principle of accountability , all relevant organizations should establish explicit criteria for evaluating and assessing building air quality and its impact on the health of the population and on the environment.
There are many small changes that can be made if SBS is suspected in widespread cases of mild ill health. Adequate ventilation is a very simple way of minimising the effects and potential build up of contaminants, and a well maintained HVAC system should draw in outside air and control its temperature and humidity before it is fed into a building at the minimum rate of 5-8 L/sec per person. A policy of purchasing low solvent products could also be adopted and this might reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds from pressed wood furniture for example, or from printers and photocopiers.
Care should also be taken when altering the internal workspace designs and increasing the number of occupants or the internal structural and furnishings. Overall ventilation may be adequate, but small changes will alter airflow patterns and could result in a different and possibly uneven distribution of this ‘fresh’ air.
Even in well designed buildings there have been many examples of groups of people experiencing problems due to the build up of toxins, while the overall air supply appears sufficient to the facilities manager.
The first point of call in identifying possible causes is to undertake a full internal air quality survey. A full range of instrumentation is available ranging from simple hand held units to comprehensive data logging long term sampling systems.
The Casella CEL Microtherm Indoor Air Quality instrument is an example of the latter and is used by building/ facilities managers for undertaking medium to long term monitoring and recording of indoor air quality and thermal environments such as storage facilities, factories, office or general workplace environments.
By carrying out simple, regular monitoring of the thermal and gaseous environments in the workplace using the Microtherm, employers can help identify problem air quality zones and help to comply with the relevant legislation including the Health & Safety At Work Regulations and COSHH.
Control of the thermal and lux levels will all lead to optimal working environments. Regular routine monitoring of the local workplace environments is essential to ensure these conditions are maintained, and a preventative strategy is preferable to a reactive one taking place, once symptoms and complaints start to arise.
There are many benefits to maintaining good working environments. Some of the most important of these are the issues of corporate responsibility and sustainability.
All tiers of management should ensure that materials used and procedures in place ensure that the company is doing all it can to contribute to local and global sustainability.
The achievement of a healthy indoor environment can help address company environmental and ecological goals, make considerable energy savings, as well as mitigate long and short term effects on human health. The necessary respect and care for indoor environments will also reflect a concern for the global environment. Improved working environments will help employee comfort and welfare and raise levels of productivity and morale.
Ozone
Ozone (O 3 ) enjoys both a good and a bad reputation, depending on where it is located. The ‘ozone layer’ is the essential protective layer in the stratosphere under increasing threat of destruction from global warming. Yet while this high level blanket is vital to shield all life forms from damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun, ozone in the lower part of the atmosphere is harmful to both the planet and human health.
The implications of the destruction of the ozone layer include an increase in skin cancers and eye diseases such as cataracts owing to increased UV radiation from the sun reaching the earth. According to the UK Environment Agency, deaths in England and Wales from malignant skin melanomas have risen from 200-300 per year in the early 1950s to over 2000 per year in 2008.
Ground level (tropospheric) ozone, a secondary air pollutant formed by the action of sunlight on primary pollutants – nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from industry, power stations and motor vehicles’ emissions – is the ‘bad’ ozone that damages human and plant life and poses a serious health risk. Data measurement and monitoring is the first step to tackling pollution by noxious ozone and other environmental pollutants in the air that we breathe. If they are measured and monitored, their detrimental effects can be mitigated through controls, such as limiting the days that cars are allowed on the road.
During August 2003, when Europe experienced one of the hottest summers on record, almost 15,000 people died during nine days of excessive heat and record ozone concentrations in France. As well as the elderly, infants, children and those with respiratory problems are particularly vulnerable to the effects of ozone, which is greatest during the summer, producing the so-called ‘summer smog’, when long hours of sunlight, still conditions and high temperatures hasten the photochemical reactions producing the unhealthy ozone. Ozone pollution may occur far away from the original source, as it is carried considerable distances by the wind.
Polluted air can increase the risk of developing or worsening allergies and life threatening illnesses such as lung diseases, bronchitis, asthma, lowered immunity, and harm to the central nervous system and brain. Air pollution also damages the environment. Greenhouse gas emissions are causing global climate change, while the protective ozone layer is being depleted by the use of CFCs and similar substances, even though their production has been banned since 1995. It is thought stratospheric levels of harmful CFCs will take between 40 and 100 years to dissipate, despite global efforts to phase out their use in fridges, air conditioners, aerosols and the like.
The 2002 EU Ozone Directive aims to limit the number of days with average ozone concentrations above 120 μg/m3 to less than 25 days a year, in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. National authorities must inform the public if ozone pollution exceeds 180 μg/ m 3 , so that those at risk can stay indoors and avoid strenuous exercise. The Directive also requires governments to consider short term measures to reduce pollution, such as limiting road traffic and the use of solvents and paints that emit VOCs.
In a recent report, the UK’s independent science academy the Royal Society expressed concerns for public health, owing to continually increasing levels of ground level ozone, despite the efforts of many countries to reduce it. According to the report, an estimated 1,582 UK deaths were attributed to ozone in 2003, and there has been a six per cent increase in background concentrations of the gas per year since the 1980s.
The report concludes that existing emission controls will not be sufficient to reduce ozone concentrations to levels acceptable for human health and environmental protection by the end of the 21st century and calls for renewed global action to address ozone and its precursors.
Regular and accurate air quality monitoring ensures regulators and industry have the information to take actions to facilitate compliance with WHO guidelines. Casella provides quality monitoring and data solutions for both climate and environmental pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and particulates, using technology to measure and reduce the threat of ground level ozone. The equipment, which produces high quality data, is easy to use and inexpensive to operate, and customers who purchase and operate air monitoring stations from Casella Monitor can also take out annual service and maintenance contracts, calling upon their team of 10 highly trained field service engineers, who in turn ensure continuous reliable operation and data output. This is essential as it allows users to provide up to date information to the public who may be at risk from pollution episodes.
Organisations should consider the use of monitoring technology for pollutants to ensure the safety of both employees and non-employees. Monitoring, such as that provided by Casella’s equipment, will allow people to know when they are at risk and will spur the authorities to take action.
Published: 10th Dec 2008 in AWE International
