AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
Uncontrolled Combustion of Shredded Tires in a Landfill: Emission Characterization, Population Exposure and Public Health Responses
ASHISH SINGH, Scott N. Spak, Elizabeth Stone, Jared Downard, Robert Bullard, Mark Pooley, Pamela Kostle, Matthew W. Mainprize, Thomas Peters, Doug Beardsley, Charles Stanier, University of Iowa
Abstract Number: 404 Working Group: Aerosol Exposure
Abstract Emergency tire fires in the US and elsewhere are not well characterized for emissions of particulate mass, number, composition, and various organic and inorganic gases. Emergency air monitoring and methods of impact assessment during emergency fires are inconsistent and not easily implemented by the response teams.
During a major tire fire in Iowa City in 2012 a variety of ambient measurements were conducted along with dispersion modelling were conducted to fill the gap in tire plume characterization and population impact assessment. We present a list of emission factors for fine particle (PM2.5) mass, total number, 19 PAHs, organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Results from this study are compared EPA lab simulated open tire fire for particle mass and PAH. The PM2.5 emission factor for burning tires in this study is more than an order of magnitude lower than the PM10 emission factor reported by EPA at 65 -105 g kg-1.
For an appropriate air quality emergency response, this study evaluated a list of priority air pollutants based on hazard ratio and proposed a multi-pollutant air quality index specific to tire fire. Hazard ratios were used to rank acute and chronic relative risks from individual fire pollutants, finding SO2 ~ PM2.5 > CO > benzene ~ acrolein > formaldehyde ~ black carbon. Using a dispersion model in conjunction with the proposed AQI, we estimate that smoke concentrations reached unhealthy outdoor levels out to distances of 2.9 km and 7.2 km, at 24 and 1 hr averaging times, respectively