Biomonitoring of the general population living near a modern solid waste incinerator: A pilot study in Modena, Italy

Biomass fuels and coke plants are important sources of human exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene and toluene

“…BT is volatile and therefore subject to dispersion by the wind, moving it away from the plant areas and precluding any significantly different urinary exposures (Ciaparra et al, 2009). Our results validated the previous studies (Ranzi et al, 2013).…”

The health impacts of waste incineration: a systematic review

“…Chen, Su and Lee 22 investigated the relationship between food consumption and blood dioxin concentration in 1,709 residents near 19 incinerators in Spain, finding significantly higher blood dioxins in those consuming locally grown food compared to those who did not ( p <0.0001). Similar results were found in Ranzi et al 59 and Cordier et al 24 Most other studies used residents who lived further away from an incinerator as a control group compared to residents who lived closer as the exposure group; distance was assumed to be a proxy for exposure. The dominance of food ingestion among exposure pathways potentially confounds these results, as the assumed ‘controls’, who in many cases only lived kilometres away from the ‘exposed’, may have eaten the same‐sourced foods.…”

“…Thirty‐six papers 15,22,27–60 investigated exposure to waste incinerator emissions by measurement of body substances. Upon review, five were found to have been misclassified and were excluded from the analysis.…”

Exposure Assessment Methods in Studies on Waste Management and Health Effects: An Overview

“…Unfortunately, only a few studies are available in literature concerning the use of biomarkers to assess the effects of exposure of the general population to emissions from waste management facilities [12]. This is probably due to the fact that this approach is not always feasible in epidemiologic studies, especially those involving large population groups, since biological monitoring presents several challenges, such as the low concentrations of substances to be measured in complex biological matrices and the difficulty in interpreting results due to the many exposure sources [23]. Finally, the need of extensive and detailed exposure studies aimed to clarify the potential link between illegal waste-disposal practices and the health impact on the population was recently discussed [24]; in particular, the need of more detailed epidemiological studies was outlined, which, however, would transpose in a very demanding strategy, assisted by multidisciplinary exposure assessment studies, including (i) the accurate mapping and characterization of all the potentially contaminated sites (i.e., the waste management sites, including the surrounding superficial water, groundwaters and soils which may be subjected to contaminations); (ii) human biomonitoring programs; and (iii) deeply-investigated individual exposure assessment.…”