ASSESSMENT OF EXPOSURES AND HEALTH RISKS RELATED TO FORMALDEHYDE EMISSIONS FROM FURNITURE - A CASE-STUDY

According to the Californian Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, Proposition 65 (State of California, 1986) the manufacturers and retailers of products (such as furniture and fittings) which emit for maldehyde are obliged to either mark their products with a warning lab el or provide evidence that their products do not pose a significant c ancer risk to the consumer. The significant risk is defined as 1 case of cancer in a population of 100,000 persons within a period of exposu re of 70 years (State of California, 1992). In this study, a large-sca le climate chamber test of a full set of furniture and fitments was ma de. The formaldehyde concentration in a test chamber peaked at about 1 12 mu g/m(3) within a day after the furniture had been installed. Afte r 8 weeks the concentration leveled out at about 50 mu g/m(3). Various models were used to predict occupant exposures in homes containing th e same furniture and fitments; multi-compartment models identified a s hort-term compartment with a half-life of between 5.2 and 6.0 h and a relative source strength of between 75% and 30% of the total source st rength; a medium-term compartment with a half-life of between 14 and 8 1 days; and a long-term compartment which the best estimate of a half- life was 384 days. The accumulated dose of formaldehyde absorbed by an occupant during 70 years of exposure in the hypothetical home was est imated by extrapolation using the same models. The dose was found to b e in the range of 0.13 g to 0.16 g.