Toluene in The Paint and Printing Industry

The first negative impacts, if you are exposed to toluene by repeated continuous skin contact, this exposure can cause reddish skin, then you will feel itching on your skin and accompanied by dry skin. Even though the negative impacts caused by toluene through skin contact are not too severe compared to other dangerous substances, you still do not want your healthy skin to be affected by the negative impacts mentioned above, you want your skin to remain as healthy as it should be. 

Secondly, excessive exposure to toluene can have an impact on our nervous system, damage to the central nervous system can occur if we really do not take good precautions. Damage to the nervous system can take the form of loss of memory that we previously had, disruption of our sleep (which should sleep soundly but now can’t), apart from that, we can also lose the ability to concentrate so that during activities we won’t be able to do it as well as before. It turns out that exposure to toluene can cause serious damage to the nervous system, of course you don’t want that toluene to cause scary things to your body, right? Then exposure to toluene can also reduce human vision, this can cause human vision to become blurrier and can even result in blindness if exposure to toluene is very large. Then, if you work in a paint product factory, of course you don’t want to be exposed to toluene, which in very large quantities can cause damage to your kidney organs. 

In addition, exposure to toluene can cause respiratory problems if you inhale it continuously in large amounts. You don’t want that to happen when you’re working in a paint factory, right? If you inhaled a smell you didn’t want, how would you feel? Uncomfortable right? You may feel dizzy when you inhale it. Inhaling even a small amount can cause discomfort and dizziness, let alone inhaling a large amount, of course you will feel very dizzy. Likewise, if you inhale too much toluene, you can feel dizzy and it can even cause vertigo in your body. That’s the negative impact that toluene can have on our bodies, there are so many negative impacts that we shouldn’t have. Exposure to toluene itself can enter our bodies through our respiratory system (by inhaling), through our mouth (if accidentally swallowed), and also of course by skin contact (touching it intentionally or unintentionally). The highest blood concentration for chronic toluene abuse for subjects who are still alive is 83.7 mg/L, while for victims who have died it is 54 mg/L, and for fatal cases of toluene it can reach 110 mg/L toluene concentrations in the blood. This research also shows that most people still think that symptoms such as headaches, partial memory loss, hallucinations and loss of balance are the impact of alcohol consumed. In fact, all of this can occur due to exposure to toluene which comes from glue, gasoline, thinner, solvents, etc.

However, after knowing the negative impacts caused by toluene, it is surprising why toluene is still used as a solvent by the paint industry and the printing industry itself? Shouldn’t it be known that toluene is bad because it causes exposure to humans, the paint and printing industry should no longer use toluene as a solvent and look for other alternatives? What makes the paint and printing industry maintain toluene as the solvent used? In fact, apart from its ability to dissolve other substances, toluene also has properties that can make products dry quickly after application. Therefore, toluene is needed by the paint and printing industry. If you are painting the walls of your house or applying nail polish to your nails, or printing, you certainly don’t want to waste time just waiting for the paint to dry, you definitely want paint that when applied once doesn’t have to waste a lot of time on the drying process. So you can easily repaint after the first layer is dry to produce a good color. 

After knowing various things about the toluene substance found in paint and printing products which is used as a solvent, we should avoid things that can cause us to be exposed to it. If you want to use nail polish, first look at the ingredients in it, whether it contains toluene or other dangerous substances or not. If so, it’s best not to use it and look for nail polish that only contains ingredients that are not harmful to the body. Likewise, if you are going to buy a wall paint product, you should first look at the ingredients in it. Look for products that do not contain toluene compounds and other dangerous ingredients, even though it is difficult, it is better than you being exposed to serious exposure to toluene compounds.