April 30, 2003 I work for a company that remanufactures toner cartridges. Even though I'm in the office area, there's always a gray dust on my desk. I would like to know if the toner material would have any affect on my lungs? -- Mary, Virginia
While air impurities are not good for us, the items below indicate that the small amounts of toner that consumers might be exposed to in changing a cartridge are not of serious consequence in most cases. However, continued direct exposure may be a different story.
The Xerox corporation has provided a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) which indicates safety using their toner cartridge as it is intended to be used. But it also showed that lung fibrosis in varing degrees occured in experiments with rats being exposed directly to "a special test toner to comply with EPA testing protocol. The test toner was ten times more respirable than commercially available Xerox toner." Read more here.
Rainbow Ink Jet says:
"Toner is made of very fine particles that are very easy to inhale and can cause severe damage to your lungs. Our toner cartridges are remanufactured in a factory that has controlled air flow to insure that the manufacturing staff do not inhale toner." Read more here.
I am not an expert in this area, and can only point you these manufacturer's statements and MSDS papers. Anyone exposed to manufacturing dust or other potentially hazardous materials on a regular basis should check with their employer to see if any safety precautions are recommended.