Plastic Pollution: Environmental Health Of Workers Affected By Pollutant

A new study in environmental science has revealed that workers in the industrial sector who use Bisphenol A or BPA in their manufacturing process may likely have up to 70 times the amount of this environmental pollutant in their bodies when compared to the average individual.  This environmental pollution from BPA has impacted negatively on reproduction and fertility. Studies even show that industrial BPA pollution in some worker were as much as a 1000 times higher than general household BPA exposure.

The study which is the first to look into the exposure to BPA in the manufacturing industry discovered that most workers had high levels of the plastic pollutant which has been shown to affect environmental health by disrupting hormonal activities in the body just after a few days of exposure.  It has been suggested by environmental health and safety experts that this industrial level exposure to BPA may have a potentially fatal effect on reproductive health and fertility.

Everyone has some level of BPA in them. This is because this environmental pollutant is found in food packaging and this is how it gets into our diet. But studies have shown that BPA exposure from diet may not be enough to cause endocrine malfunction when compared to skin absorption, as in workers exposed to BPA.

Top researchers in environmental science and health believe that when manufacturing workers are covered with BPA, this environmental pollutant is absorbed through the skin into the body. She believes this account for the enormous level of exposure of BPA in factory workers when compared to the general public.

The study, which took place between 2013 and 2014, sampled urine from 77 workers who have worked for two consecutive days, from six different companies that make BPA, BPA-resins, or BPA-filled wax. It was discovered that the BPA levels in urine samples were 70 times higher than the average US adult, as published by the Annals of Work Exposures and Health. It was even reported that one worker’s BPA levels spiked up to 18,900 micrograms per gram of in his urine sample at the end of the shift of the second day of work. The median level of BPA in the general public is a little less than 2 micrograms per gram.

The bizarre truth is that there is no workplace exposure limit for BPA (even in the US) unlike other known environmental pollutants, so there is no way to make workers in the BPA production industry aware of the risk of high levels of the chemical. The situation is not helped either by the industry operators who have always argued that the body passes out BPA within a day making exposure less effective. But several studies in environmental pollution from BPA have continually dispelled such argument by showing high concentrations of this carcinogen in the body after just 2 days of workplace exposure.

This unusual spike in BPA levels in factory workers has been associated with reduction in reproductive hormone levels and semen quality. This could lead to sexual dysfunction.