IAC-Quepia Program and University of Maryland Eastern Shore advance agricultural PPE decontamination method

The IAC-Quepia Quality of Personal Protective Equipment in Agriculture program welcomes, this week, researcher from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, USA, Anugrah Shaw. She joins the team of Brazilian researcher Hamilton Ramos, coordinator of “Quepia”, with the aim of finalizing studies and recommendations on the decontamination of agricultural protective clothing or agricultural PPE. These accessories are used in rural work, in the application of agricultural pesticides.

Resulting from a public-private partnership led by the Engineering and Automation Center (CEA), of the Agronomic Institute (IAC), located in Jundiaí, São Paulo - an entity of the Department of Agriculture and Supply of the State of SP -, the IAC-Quepia program has been operating for more than fifteen years, focused on rural work safety in the face of spraying with agricultural pesticides.

“We will confirm, in the laboratory, the results of a method, developed by us, that analyzes contamination and decontamination of PPE made with cotton and polyester, both raw materials used, globally, to protect rural workers”, reinforces Hamilton Ramos, general director of CEA-IAC Jundiaí. To conduct a relevant part of the study, he says, there will also be the participation of researcher Sérgio Monteiro, from the Biological Institute, a specialist in agrochemical residue analysis.

According to Ramos, the expectation is that, shortly after the researcher's arrival, the CEA-IAC and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore will present the study's conclusions and recommendations to the International EPI Consortium – an entity made up of scientists from eight agricultural countries. “In addition to the analysis method, we will forward the first results on the average amount of pesticides retained in cotton and polyester clothing”, she explains.

The ultimate objective, says the researcher, is to contribute to updating methods for safety assessments applicable to the ISO 27065 standard, which divides agricultural clothing by protection levels. One of the central points under discussion, highlights Ramos, is whether, after being fixed to the fabrics in question, pesticides can reach the rural worker's skin after the PPE's useful life has ended.

“We have been researching, for some years, whether such PPE poses an environmental risk after its expiration date, as well as whether it can be discarded as common waste or whether, once expired, it can be reused for everyday rural work, except for pesticide applications”, exemplifies Ramos.

According to the researcher, the analysis undertaken in partnership with the University of Maryland will also take into account several complementary studies, carried out in the other countries that form the International ECE Consortium.

Hamilton Ramos also reveals that, in fifteen years of activities, IAC-Quepia's actions have helped to significantly reduce quality rejections of protective agricultural clothing produced in Brazil, from 80% of the amount analyzed by the program, in 2010, to less than 20%. % nowadays.