(VCCEP) Tier 1 Pilot Submission for BENZENE - Tera

In sidestream smoke, benzene ranged from 345 µg/cig to 653 µg/cig. These rates are
comparable to the average rates reported by Daisey et al., (1994). Also measured was the
concentration of benzene in a smoke-polluted tavern. In these settings, the benzene
concentration ranged from 26 µg/m 3 to 36 µg/m 3 .
On a daily basis, children spend most of their time inside at home and therefore their greatest
potential for benzene exposure from ETS would be if they lived with a smoker. Also, although
significant decreases in teenage smoking have been demonstrated in recent years, many
teenagers are cigarette smokers. Thus, exposures to benzene via tobacco smoke were
quantified for children from mainstream smoke and ETS.
Benzene Exposures Resulting from ETS
In order to evaluate the exposure to benzene from tobacco smoke, the general school year
weekday microenvironment activity patterns for children as presented in Section 5 (Table 5.4)
were considered. It was assumed that the average smoking household had one adult smoking
off-and-on at home except while that person was sleeping. As presented in Appendix A-1, an
adult is at home approximately 13 hours per day, of which 7 are assumed to be spent asleep.
The adult is assumed to smoke regularly during the remaining 6 hours spent awake at home.
The total time spent with smokers was obtained for children from the Exposure Factors
Handbook (EFH), and is presented in Table 7.35 (U.S. EPA, 1997b). As indicated on Table
7.35, an appreciable difference in children’s exposure times to ETS is not evident for weekdays
versus weekends. Therefore, the analysis was simplified by using the weekday activity pattern
to represent the entire year. The complete hourly activity patterns for the ETS exposure
calculations are presented in Table 7.36 and were selected to maintain consistency with the
information presented in Appendix A-1.
Benzene VCCEP Submission
March 2006
Table 7.35: Time Spent With Smokers Present
Age Group
Mean Number of Hours per Day
Spent With Smoker a
1–4 years old 6.1
5–11 years old 5.3
12–17 years old 4.1
All ages 6.3
Weekday 6.2
Weekend 6.6
a
U.S. EPA, 1997b. Table 15-141.
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