The Toxics Use Reduction Institute is a multi-disciplinary research, education, and policy center established by the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act of 1989. The Institute sponsors and conducts research, organizes education and training programs, and provides technical support to promote the reduction in the use of toxic chemicals or the generation of toxic chemical byproducts in industr...

BACKGROUND Acrolein is an air toxic and highly potent respiratory irritant. There is little epidemiology available, but US EPA estimates that outdoor acrolein is responsible for about 75 percent of non-cancer respiratory health effects attributable to air toxics in the United States, based on the Agency's 2005 NATA (National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment) and acrolein's comparatively potent inhal...

One of the pillars of epidemiologic research on the long-term health effects of air pollution is to estimate the chronic exposures over space and time. In this study, we aimed to measure the intra-urban ambient carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations within Urmia city in Iran, and to build a model within the geographic information system (GIS) to estimate the annual and seasonal means anywhere with...

The goal of this analysis was to explore a GIS-based technique to assess the potentially suitable locations for monitoring air toxics pollutants emitted at landfills. Several map layers such as landfill activity, population density, and distances from other emission sources were incorporated into three different suitability modeling scenarios. The ArcGIS Spatial Analyst tool was used to perform...

Information disclosure has become a ubiquitous component of contemporary governance. This study examines how information about the performance regulated entities, which also implicates relevant government agencies, affects bureaucratic behaviors. In context Clean Air Act (CAA) — primary law that regulates air pollution in United States, this shows regulators significantly increased CAA regulato...

This strongly alkaline chemical is widely used in industry as a feed stock for nitrogen-based chemicals such as fertilizers, plastics and explosives (ATSDR, 1990). Ammonia is also used as a refrigerant. The general public is exposed by off-gasing from cleaning solutions containing aqueous ammonia. Household ammonia solutions contain 5-10% ammonia in water while industrial strength can be up to ...