[Polish and worldwide short term exposure limits: concept, interpretation and proposed sampling strategy for...

Short term exposure limits (STEL) are introduced to prevent acute effects of substances whose workday concentrations are maintained below OEL-TWA. The aim of this paper was to compare the procedures of setting STEL and practicing their application for chemical agents in Poland and other selected countries (USA, Germany, UK) and in the European Union in general. Based on the review, a new concept of STEL was proposed. It involves drastic decrease in the number of substances with dual hygiene standards and maintenance of departures above TWA within some reasonable limits, depending on variability of concentrations expressed as geometric standard deviation, if the availability of toxicological data is limited. In view of the changed STEL definition, a new air sampling strategy has been proposed. It is based on the worst case samples with possibility of restrain from sampling in case of homogenous exposure.