Salvatore Giolando, Ph.D., ARCADIS Inc., 3699 Symmes Road, Hamilton, OH 45015, Tel: 513-860-8700, Email: sal.giolando@arcadis-us.com
Carmen Venezia, CIH, OSRAM, Hawes Street, Towanda, PA 18848, Tel: 570-268-5128, Email: carmen.venezia@sylvania.com
Zan Persichetti, Kennametal Inc., 1600 Technology Way , Latrobe, PA 15650, Tel: 724-539-5445, Email: zan.persichetti@kennametal.com
Michael J. Pardus, ARCADIS Inc., 600 Waterfront Drive , Pittsburgh, PA 15222, Tel: 412-231-6624, Email: michael.pardus@arcadis-us.com

In the United States and European Union there has been an increased pace of scientific research, regulatory initiatives, and media and NGO activity concerning the overall safety of tungsten, tungsten compounds, and processing facilities.  Thus with the strong support of it’s membership the ITIA Health Safety and Environment Committee initiated in 2004 a Global Stewardship Program which is expected to evolve along with the emerging science and the global regulatory environment.  The ITIA member companies have had on-going regulatory compliance and employee safety and stewardship programs for years, however through this global stewardship program ITIA seeks to provide a unified voice for the tungsten industry and to develop credible science to support stewardship and growth of the industry.  This presentation will describe the overall program, including assembly of an international scientific advisory group and industry sponsored scientific research programs.  Key elements of this Global Stewardship Program include:

Establishing ITIA as a pre-eminent representative of the industry to regulators and all global stakeholders by establishing positive proactive relationships with key agencies and stakeholders.

Develop a comprehensive Environmental Health and Safety database, including full tungsten product life cycle characterization, to support definitive human health and ecological risk assessment along the tungsten supply chain, and support compliance with emerging regulations including the European Union’s New Chemicals Policy -REACH.

Sustainable Manufacturing: A Case Study from the Tungsten Hardmetal Industry

Michael J. Pardus, ARCADIS Inc., 600 Waterfront Drive , Pittsburgh, PA 15222, Tel: 412-231-6624, Email: michael.pardus@arcadis-us.com

Sustainable practices and maximizing resource efficiency has long been a hallmark of the hardmetal industry.  For purposes of this paper, hardmetal refers to products prepared from tungsten carbide and a suitable metal binder (typically cobalt or nickel).  This paper presents information on sustainable practices within the hardmetal that form a part of a global tungsten supply chain.  With a price that is equivalent to or higher than silver, maintaining high levels of resource efficiency is critical to the vitality of the hardmetal industry.  Recovery and reclamation rates in the manufacturing operations are frequently in excess of 98%.

Sustainable practices within the industry that will be the focus of this presentation include:

• Use of technological advances to improve the working life of hardmetal tools and wear resistant parts;
• Advanced design techniques to reduce the amount of hardmetal required in tooling and metalworking applications;
• Minimizing product losses (and employee exposures) throughout the production cycle;
• Reclamation and recovery of non-product outputs; and End of life management activities for hardmetal products.

Hardmetal Safety: An Industry Perspective

Zan Persichetti, Kennametal Inc., 1600 Technology Way, Latrobe, PA 15650, Tel: 724-539-5445, Email:  zan.persichetti@kennametal.com
Michael J. Pardus, ARCADIS Inc., 600 Waterfront Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, Tel: 412-231-6624, Email:  michael.pardus@arcadis-us.com
Dianne Green, ARCADIS Inc., 3699 Symmes Road, Hamilton, OH 45015, Tel: 513-860-8700, Email:  dianne.green@arcadis-us.com

Hardmetal powder (tungsten carbide with a cobalt or nickel binder) is used to manufacture high value wear-resistant products that are critical to the aerospace, automotive, mining, construction, and energy industries, to name a few.  In the United States and European Union there has been an increased pace of scientific research, regulatory initiatives, and media and Non Governmental Organization (NGO) activity concerning the overall safety of hardmetal.  This presentation consists of four major themes:

1. A very small number of employees work in the hardmetal manufacturing industry in such a capacity where they are exposed to hardmetal.
2. Occupational exposures are controlled to very low levels across the hardmetal manufacturing industry. 
3. The high intrinsic value of hardmetal results in an extremely high degree of hardmetal recovery, recycling, and reclamation throughout the life cycle of hardmetal products.  The high recovery rates for this valuable product also lead to a high degree of control that limits occupational exposures, and minimizes environmental emissions of hardmetal.

There is virtually no hardmetal exposure to end users of hardmetal products, who are primarily engaged in industrial and manufacturing activities.  The extreme wear resistance of hardmetal products means that very small amounts of hardmetal are needed to provide maximum benefit in product applications.  This wear resistance results in no significant exposure to hardmetal dusts or fumes by end users.  Additionally, few hardmetal products are designed for use by consumers (i.e., non-industrial applications).

Tungsten Carbide/Cobalt Hardmetal Powder: Are They Carcinogenic?

John D. Schell, Ph.D., ARCADIS Inc., 2929 Briarpark Drive, Houston, TX 77042-3745, Tel:  713-785-1680, Email:  john.schell@arcadis-us.com
Salvatore Giolando, Ph.D., ARCADIS Inc., 3699 Symmes Road, Hamilton, OH 45015, Tel:  513-860-8700, Email:  sal.giolando@arcadis-us.com
Michael J. Pardus, ARCADIS Inc., 600 Waterfront Drive , Pittsburgh, PA 15222, Tel: 412-231-6624, Email:  michael.pardus@arcadis-us.com

Occupational exposure to hardmetal is associated with different types of lung disease including asthma, alveolitis, and interstitial fibrosis.  In addition, limited epidemiological investigations have purported a link between occupational exposure to cobalt tungsten carbide (hardmetal) and lung cancer.  These recent reports lead the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to classification hardmetal compounds as “probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A) on the basis of limited evidence for increased risk of lung cancer” (IARC, 2003).  In July, 2004, the Senate Commission of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) published its evaluation of the scientific substantiation for the categorization of “hardmetal”, the binary mixture of tungsten carbide and cobalt.  The DFG rated hardmetal dusts as “category 1 carcinogens since they cause lung cancer in humans.”

The epidemiological studies cited by the IARC and DFG were reviewed, analyzed and subjected to causation analysis, a broadly accepted and scientifically objective methodology that utilizes a number of criteria in order to establish the existence of a cause and effect relationship between chemical exposure and an adverse health outcome, such as cancer.  The specific criteria examined in this causation analysis included: 1) consistency of the association; 2) strength of the association; 3) dose (or exposure)-response relationships; 4) temporality; 5) biological plausibility; 6) confounder analysis; and 7) coherence of the evidence. 

Application of these criteria to the four epidemiological studies cited by DFG in support of their categorization of hardmetal dust reveal that all four studies were plagued by study design weaknesses (e.g., low number of deaths), uncertainties, particularly in estimating exposure, and an inability to address important confounding variables, e.g., cigarette smoking and co-exposure to other IARC carcinogens.  These study design weaknesses are amplified by the fact that three of the studies – Lasfargues et al. (1994), Moulin et al. (1998), and Wild et al. (2000) – are interrelated in that they study the same workforce, although not in its entirety in all studies, and hence are not independent investigations.  Thus, the weak associations reported by these investigators should not be used to classify hardmetal dust as “category 1 carcinogens since they cause lung cancer in humans.”   

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