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Railway Sleeper Brackets Are Reservoirs of Poorly Degradable Pollutants

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Raz Smith
Railway Sleeper Brackets Are Reservoirs of Poorly Degradable Pollutants

In Railway Sleeper Brackets, which are often used as an inexpensive building material for slope reinforcement, path reinforcements, pasture fences, etc. are used, after 20 to 25 years of use it is mainly the non-volatile, sometimes carcinogenic components of wood preservatives containing tar oil that remain. These polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are difficult to break down, accumulate in living organisms and are toxic to aquatic organisms.

Used railway sleepers primarily emit relatively volatile PAHs, which are occasionally perceived as an odor nuisance, but are not considered to be hazardous to health due to their composition and the small amount. Because the carcinogenic PAHs are not very volatile and are therefore hardly released into the air, there is only a health risk in the case of frequent skin contact over many years. Wooden sleepers impregnated with tar oil are therefore unsuitable for use on children's playgrounds, in gardens, and certainly not indoors.

The previous use in the private sector represents a difficult starting point for professional disposal at the end of the usage phase. Who would like to pay the same price for disposal as years before for purchase? The new regulation aims to restrict resale so that the thresholds can be disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner in the medium term. Projections have shown that the railway sleepers that will arise over the next 20 years will contain around 40,000 tons of tar oil.

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Raz Smith
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