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What is toluene?
Toluene is a clear, colorless liquid with a distinctive smell. Toluene occurs naturally in crude oil. It is also produced in the process of making gasoline and other fuels from crude oil and making coke from coal.
Toluene is used in making paints, paint thinners, fingernail polish, lacquers, adhesives, and rubber and in some printing and leather tanning processes.
Toluene exposure
Exposure to toluene occurs from breathing contaminated workplace air, in automobile exhaust, some consumer products paints, paint thinners, fingernail polish, lacquers, and adhesives. Toluene affects the nervous system. Toluene has been found at 959 of the 1,591 Superfund sites.
What happens to toluene when it enters the environment?
Toluene enters the environment when you use materials that contain it. It can also enter surface water and groundwater from spills of solvents and petrolium products as well as from leaking underground storage tanks at gasoline stations and other facilities. When toluene-containing products are placed in landfills or waste disposal sites, the toluene can enter the soil or water near the waste site. Toluene does not usually stay in the environment long. Toluene does not concentrate or buildup to high levels in animals.
Is Toluene Dangerous?
Toluene may affect the nervous system. Low to moderate levles can cause tiredness, confusion, weakness, drunken-type actions, memory loss, nausea, loss of appetite, and hearing and color vision loss. These symptoms usually disappear when exposure is stopped.
Inhaling High levels of toluene in a short time can make you feel light-headed, dizzy, or sleepy. It can also cause unconsciousness, and even death.
Some studies in animals suggest that babies may be more sensitive than adults.
Breathing very high levels of toluene during pregnancy can result in children with birth defects and retard mental abilities, and growth. We do not know if toluene harms the unborn child if the mother is exposed to low levels of toluene during pregnancy.
Is there a medical test to show whether I've been exposed to toluene?
There are tests to measure the level of toluene or its breakdown products in exhaled air, urine, and blood. To determine if you have been exposed to toluene, your urine or blood must be checked within 12 hours of exposure. Several other chemicals are also changed into the same breakdown products as toluene, so some of these tests are not specific for toluene.
What happens with toluene waste?
According to the 2000 Toxics Release Inventory, industry managed appoximately 2 billion pounds of toluene waste of which 81 million pounds were released by stationary sources into the air. 339 million pounds were treated and 214 million poiunds were used as an energy source.
How is toluene disposed?
Despite the risk, toluene is not a toxicity characteristic chemical. Therefore, some toluene waste, depending on its use, is not required to follow the federal solid waste law rules for hazardous waste.
Generally, it is used as a waste fuel or burned in incinerators.
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