Safe Use of Detergent Enzymes in the Workplace

This article gives a detailed description of a program to control workplace exposure to enzymes during manufacture of laundry detergents. We believe this same program could, in large part, be re-applied to control exposure to enzymes in other industries or to control exposure to other industrial allergens. We chose to publish at this time because we believe enzyme use will increase in the future. The information contained here could potentially help new users ensure safe deployment of enzyme technology. Also, we have recently acquired new knowledge to improve our management system: this knowledge could help current enzyme users. We offer two new approaches that greatly increase worker participation and also improve understanding of the production process. We also highlight limitations of traditional air sampling. The new approaches are semi-quantitative tools to detect, rank, and control sources of dust release and product spillage. Our main conclusions are that detergent enzymes can be handled safely in the workplace provided there is no visible dust or spillage. Finally, we highlight the value of prick testing as a safe, simple tool to objectively asses the effectiveness of a hygiene program and to provide an "early alert" in the event of outages in the management system.

Keywords:

• Workplace Exposure
• Enzymes
• Laundry Detergents
• Exposure Control
• Industrial Allergens