During the laser processing of this polycarbonate, the effluent stream produced is composed of small amounts of benzene, toluene, phenol and smaller hydrocarbon fragments such as methane, ethane, ethene, and propene.  Additionally, from the carbonate linkage in the molecule itself and the combustion of the polymer, carbon monoxide is formed.  It should be worth noting that during the analysis of this material, we did not see the presence of bisphenol A.  Additionally, the yellow deposition or residue sometimes found on the surface of the processed material was determined to be phenol, which is water soluble (increasingly soluble with hot water). In our tests, the primary gaseous components were carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide gas.

The amount of gas liberated is directly related to the amount of material ablated.  The laser marking process will yield a substantially lower amount of liberated gases, mostly small amounts of polymer dust, as compared to that of cutting.  The nature of your material, its relatively small thickness indicates that a relatively small amount of material overall will be ablated during your process.  The small amount of material processed will yield an equivalently small amount of gaseous effluent. 

Provided that the user follows all written and implied safety and processing procedures provide by ULS, specifically the blower systems to evacuate the effluent gases, laser processing of these materials is safe to work with.  Beyond those safety recommendations, I would suggest a publication produced by the American National Standards Institute entitled, “American National Standard for Safe Use of Lasers.”  This can be located on the net via code of standards number, ANSI Z136.1.