What lies beneath? Distribution and bioaccessibility of heavy metals in
household carpet dust.
Supervisor:
Dr Gary Owens, Future Fellow – Mawson Institute, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia
Phone: +61 8 8302 5043. Email: gary.owens@unisa.edu.au
Area: Environmental Science
Suitable for: PhD and Masters
Abstract:
Household carpets can act as both a source and sink for household dust and any dust
associated environmental contaminants. Dust enters residential homes either externally,
typically as airborne dust or via tracking of particulate matter on shoes, or internally from dust
generating activities carried out within the house. Dust can be a significant route of respiratory
exposure to adults as well as via the gastrointestinal route to young infants who are often in
close proximity to floor surfaces and exhibit hand-to-mouth behaviour. Since fine particular
matter often sticks to children’s hands, hand-to-mouth behaviour is a significant route for
childhood ingestion of heavy metals. Thus accurate measurement of metal concentrations in
household dust is important as lead (Pb) and other industrial metals represent a potential
health hazard to children and their development.
Related references:
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Cotters-Howell J. and Thornton I. (1991) Sources and pathways of environmental lead to children in a
Derbyshire mining village. Environ. Geochem. Health. 13 (2), 127-135.
Adgate J.L., Weisel C., Rhoads G. G. and Lioy P. J. (1995) Lead in house dust: relationships between
exposure metrics and sampling techniques. Environ. Res. 70, 134-147.
Gary Owens, Graham Blows, Bernie Zarcinas and Michael J. McLaughlin (2002) Development of In Situ
Remediation Regimes to Reduce Exposure of Lead to Children in Households at Port Pirie, CSIRO Land &
Water. Consultancy report for the South Australian Department of Human Services.
About Adelaide:
Adelaide is the capital of South Australia and offers a very high standard of living (top 6 in the
world according to “The Economist”), with great climate, food, wine, beautiful unspoiled
nature and beach environments, in an inexpensive setting.
The Mawson Institute (MI) has recently been established at the University of South Australia,
with strong support from the South Australian Government to research new manufacturing
technologies. Manufacturing is an important and substantial part of South Australia’s
economic base. The MI promotes a strategy based upon strong basic and applied research
that encourages scientific and technological innovation within the manufacturing sector.
Fundamental to this is the Institute’s multidisciplinary approach, building research teams in
concentrations that encompass a diverse range of disciplines, and collaboration with partners
from both academia and industry.
The institute is based in two new state-of-the-art buildings with outstanding research facilities
(see photo of the MM building).
For more information on this project please contact the supervisor.