How to Clean-Up Toner to Avoid Health Risks
You can wash toner off of skin and clothes with cold water. If you use hot or warm water, the toner softens and causes it to bond in place. Typically, toner that fuses to clothing does not come out. It’s easy to clean un-fused toner from most water-washable apparel. Toner is a waxy or plastic powder with a low melting temperature. So, you must keep the water cold while cleaning.
You should fill your washing machine with cold water before adding a garment. Completing two complete wash cycles should do the trick. Two cycles greatly improves your chance of success. In the first round use a hand wash detergent. On the second cycle, use regular laundry detergent. Remember: residual toner floats in the rinse water of the first cycle. It remains on your clothing and may cause permanent graying. Never use a clothes dryer or iron on a garment until you remove all of the toner.
If toner fuses to your skin there’s no need to worry because it eventually wears off. You can also speed up the process by using an abrasive hand cleaner.
Toner particles typically develop static-electric charges when they rub against objects, transport system interiors, vacuum cleaner hoses, and other particles. These particles contain electrostatic properties by design. So, for this reason
[and the small particle size] you should never vacuum toner with conventional home vacuum cleaners. The static-charged toner particles have ignited dust in vacuum cleaner bags. The particles have even created small explosions when there is
enough toner in the air! Obviously, this can damage a vacuum cleaner or start a fire. Besides, toner particles are so tiny that household vacuum cleaner filter bags poorly filter them. So, they can blow right through the vacuum motor or
into your room.
If you do spill toner into a laser printer you must use a special type of vacuum cleaner. This vacuum uses an electrically conductive hose and has a high-efficiency filter. This makes the cleaning safer and more effective. These vacuums are electrostatic discharge-safe or “toner” vacuums. If you have a large toner spill you’ll want to use similar HEPA filter equipped vacuums to clean up the mess.
Toner is a fine powder and can suspend in the air for some time. The powder can create health effects comparable to inert dust. So, people with respiratory conditions like asthma and bronchitis get irritated from it. Bacteria studies in the 1970s raised health concerns about pyrrole. Pyrrole is a contaminant created during the manufacture of the black carbon used in black toner. So, manufacturing processes changed to eliminate it from the final product. However, even though manufacturers eliminated the main threat recent research confirms laser printers emit sub-micrometer particles. Environmental studies associate these sub-micrometer particles with respiratory diseases.
At the University of Rostock in Germany an unpublished study reports that the microscopic particles in toner are similar to asbestos and carcinogenic. The researchers studied several technicians who work with printers and copiers daily for many years. The technicians had increasing lung problems.
