Dust

Workplace dust causes many serious health problems, including cancers of the lungs, throat and nose and other lung conditions called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. It also causes asthma, rhinitis and heart disease and if allowed to build up, can result in an explosion hazard. The TUC published Time to Change Health and Safety bulletin — Dust, in April 2013 setting out that dust in the workplace is not just a nuisance, it can also be a killer and is in fact the biggest cause of work-related death.

The factsheet looks at what the law says about dust in the workplace, why the dust limit is too high, and why the COSHH regulations need to be properly enforced. The TUC argues that the current regulations are failing to protect workers and that the standards used for assessing workplace dust exposure are totally inadequate. It argues that there is clear scientific evidence that the current UK limits for inhalable and respirable dust of 10mg/m3 and 4mg/m3 respectively should be much lower. It says there should be a precautionary standard of 2.5mg/m3 instead of 10mg/m3, and 1mg/m3 instead of 4mg/m3.

In July 2014, academics at the University of Stirling called on the HSE to tighten the control limits for exposure to silica dust, which can be created during work with stone, rock, concrete and plaster. Professors at the University’s Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety Research Group (OEHSRG), Rory O’Neill and Andrew Watterson, say that hundreds of thousands of workers are put at risk and 1,000 could die every year due to exposure to silica dust. They say that crystalline silica is second only to asbestos as a cause of occupational cancer deaths and that exposure to it can also cause illnesses including silicosis, tuberculosis, kidney disease, COPD and arthritis.

Silica dust currently has a workplace exposure limit of 0.1 milligrams per cubic metre assigned to it, but the US safety regulator OSHA has argued in favour of cutting the limit by half. The OEHSRG wants the HSE to do the same. The HSE argues that it is not practical or achievable to consistently and reliably measure real workplace samples of respirable crystalline silica to significantly lower levels.