We are working on stablishing the environmental criteria for the use
of steel slags as a granular material in road construction. A
composition change lower than 1 % for the first meter of
a reference soil has been considered as an acceptable risk.
We have some problems with Ba,Mo, Cr and V. For these elements, the
composition change caused because of the leachate of the steel slags,
is higher than 1 % and we would like to know if it suposes a real
risk or not.
We have considered a daily intake of soil equal to 200 mg/day, so we
have calculated the intake of each element as follow:
Final soil Composition Element Intake
Ba: 160 mg/kg 0,032 mg/day
Cr: 60 mg/kg 0,012 mg/day
Mo: 3 mg/kg 0,0006 mg/day
V: 90 mg/kg 0,018 mg/day
We would like to know if these values represent a risk for the health
of human beings.
After consulting the IRIS, ATSDR and the ITER databases, we have got
a lot of different toxicological limit values for these four
elements.As these values are based on different criteria
(NOAEL for monkeys, TDI for rat, PMTDI for dogs... ) it seems very
difficult to apply them in this particular problem.
How can we solve our problem?
Thanking you very much,
Mrs. Ainhoa Egizabal
