Abstract
Wearing appropriate personal protective equipment during the application of pesticides is one method of reducing dermal exposure to pesticides. Thus, the aim of this research is to develop personal protective clothing (PPC) coated with gum rosin and investigate the efficiency of its level of protection against chlorpyrifos and cypermethrin. Comparison of the protection efficiency of each PPC with Tychem® C coveralls was also investigated. Five commercially available cotton fabrics were chosen for tailoring the PPC, and then, the PPC was coated with a gum rosin finish to provide water repellence. The efficiency of the level of protection of the gum rosin-coated PPC against insecticides was tested in a laboratory (closed chamber). The remarkable findings were that the % protection efficiencies for all the PPC, with the exception of one, were not significantly different to those for Tychem® C coveralls. The protection efficiencies ranged from 99.85% to 99.97% against chlorpyrifos and 99.11% to 99.89% against cypermethrin. Therefore, our results suggest that gum rosin-coated clothing provided satisfactory levels of protection against insecticides and could be considered as suitable protective clothing for pesticide applicators. Choice of an appropriate fabric for coating with gum rosin also needs to be considered. A further study in field conditions is warranted to confirm the protection efficiency in a working environment.
Highlights
It has been known that pesticides are associated with acute and chronic health effects in agricultural workers who are exposed to them
Potential dermal exposure (PDE) for chlorpyrifos ranged from 14.15 ± 7.67 μg for PPC1 to 6660.36 ± 6070.98 μg for PPC5
PDE for cypermethrin ranged from 56.01 ± 55.88 μg for PPC1 to 85,026.91 ± 29,890.51 μg for PPC5
Summary
It has been known that pesticides are associated with acute and chronic health effects in agricultural workers who are exposed to them. Exposure to pesticides can potentially occur during mixing, loading, application of the pesticides, and other activities in farms. Due to pesticide application taking up the highest proportion of the working time in comparison to the tasks of mixing and loading, exposure during pesticide application might be more significant [1,2]. The primary route of exposure to pesticides is dermal contact, while exposure through inhalation is rather limited, due to the low vapor. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 3303; doi:10.3390/ijerph17093303 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
