Air Monitoring Instruments

Of the four major routes chemical take into the human body - inhalation (breathing), absorption (skin contact), ingestion (eating), and injection - inhalation is the most common. Airborne contaminants are a special risk category for workers at hazardous waste sites. Workers can choose not to touch or ingest workplace chemicals, but they cannot prevent inhalation if not outfitted with appropriate PPE. Furthermore, airborne contaminants are often undetectable. Therefore, testing and monitoring of air quality at hazardous waste sites is an integral component of initial site characterization and ongoing monitoring protocols.

Testing for airborne contaminants takes one or both of the following forms:

• On-site use of direct-reading instruments
• Laboratory analysis of air samples

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