Abstract
The objective of this work was to analyse safety and health at work regarding the exposure of workers to styrene, and to establish
the basis for an exposure control system over the entire Republic of Slovenia. The main goals were to determine the number of
exposed workers, the levels of exposure at workplaces, and the effects to workers health. The measurements of the airborne
styrene concentrations and the biological monitoring of the exposed workers were performed. One thousand four hundred and
sixty one workers, i.e. 6.5 % of those included in this study, were exposed to styrene concentrations between 0.01 and 700 ppm.
The highest exposure occurred during the manual lamination of huge surfaces where the Occupational Exposure Limit (OEL)
was occasionally exceeded by 35 times. One hundred and eighty nine female workers, representing 45.1 % of all workers in
manual lamination, were frequently exposed to such high concentration, many of them in the fertile period. Biological
monitoring revealed that characteristic indicator of styrene in biological samples exceeded biological limit values within the
group of manual and lacquering workers, even if styrene airborne concentrations were lower than the OEL value. The presented
survey can serve as a guide for performing similar analyses for other dangerous substances at workplaces, which are not yet
adequately examined