3.1. Air samples
In total, we collected 143 (77 inhalable fraction and 65 OFC) personal breathing zone air samples from the recycling workers and 6 static samples from the office areas. Sampling time was, on average, 303 min (range 171–398 min) for the inhalable air samples and 298 min (171–398 min) for the OFC samples. The arithmetic mean particulate concentration was 2.8 ± 1.9 mg/m3 (range 0.37–12 mg/m3) for the inhalable samples and 1.5 ± 0.9 mg/m3 (0.21–4.8 mg/m3) for the OFC samples. The metal content of the particulate was 6% in the inhalable samples and 8% in the OFC samples.
As evident from Table 2, the most abundant metal in the inhalable samples from the recycling workers was Fe with a geometric mean (GM) concentration of 98 μg/m3 (min–max: 3.8–720 μg/m3), followed by Zn with a GM of 14 μg/m3 (min–max: 0.28–220 μg/m3), and Pb