Chemical exposure in Cultural Heritage restoration: questionnaire to define the state of art.

The use of chemicals in art restoration involves the potential exposure to risk factors for worker’s health and environment. The broad range of non-standardizedrestoration techniques employed during the interventions on Cultural Heritage,often involves the use of solvent mixtures without a real understanding of risksconnected with their use. Frequently, artworks must be restored on-site, withoutany adequate ventilation. Additionally, restoration workers do not always wearappropriate individual protection and monitoring devices (I.P.D.), which couldreduce their overall exposure, despite the national rules on workplace safety.Moreover, the treatment of produced chemical wastes may be very expensive andhave damaging effects on environment if not handled properly performed.Restorers must be conscious and able to minimize their exposure risk by replacinghigher toxicity reagents and procedures with new methods and materials or safersolvents. The goal of a useful prevention plan in Cultural Heritage restorationshould be based on a suitable training program for restorers, aimed to raise theawareness on chemical risk and to replace the hazardous products. To that purpose a national meeting was organized in Rome to discuss on “Sustainable Restoration”. As a conclusion of the meeting, the promotion of a questionnaire to understand the state of the art about the safety conditions of restorers and chemicals used by 530 restorers and the potential risk factors of exposure was a clear need. In this paper,the design and the validation of the questionnaire are shown.