Mike Slater
Mike Slater, president of the British Occupational Hygiene Society, discusses a silent killer, construction dust, and how it puts workers at greater risk of ill health.
In May, a judge at Preston Crown Court handed down a £100,000 fine to Stonyhurst College, a private school in Lancashire, and ordered it to pay £31,547.78 in prosecution costs after pleading guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The fine was imposed after one of the college’s construction workers was exposed to high levels of silica dust, leading him to develop silicosis, a potentially fatal lung disease. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that he and other stonemasons employed by the college were exposed to up to 80 times the daily limit for silica dust.
According to the HSE, the college did not take any measures to monitor or reduce the exposure of workers to the dust, and even after the stonemason was diagnosed with silicosis in May 2011. This situation continued until two remaining stonemasons, employed by on a project to build a new sixth-form block, were made redundant in November 2011.
This tragic case illustrates how the failure to adequately control exposure to silica dust can have a serious impact on the quality of life of workers and can also have financial implications for their employers and damage their reputation.
What is construction dust?
Unfortunately silica isn’t the only type of dust that can cause ill health. In broad terms, “construction dust” covers silica, wood, demolition, marble, plasterboard and limestone dust. These dusts can occur as a result of carrying out activities including cutting, grinding and sanding materials such as concrete, tiles and wood. Some of the dusts workers are exposed to may be extremely fine, too fine to see in normal lighting and tiny enough to be breathed deep down into the lungs.
The problem occurs when exposure takes place over long periods of time, resulting in a number of occupational diseases including:
- Silicosis – an incurable lung disease as a result of inhaling silica dust
- Lung cancer – as a result of exposure to silica dust
- Nasal cancer – from inhaling certain types of hard wood dusts
- COPD – an obstruction of the airways, making the airways inflamed and narrowed
Occupational asthma – directly linked to the working environment and is usually the result of exposure to substances known as respiratory sensitisers.
It is these long latency occupational diseases that are going unnoticed. So, although we hear reports about the tragic deaths of construction workers due to accidents at work, there are thousands of deaths caused by exposure to hazardous dusts in the construction sector that are hidden from the public gaze. Many employers may be unaware that their workers are exposed to hazardous concentrations of dust and even where they know about the risks, in many cases they are not managed and controlled effectively.
Managing the risks
Where possible you must prevent employees from being exposed to hazardous dust. If the dust cannot be eliminated, then you must adequately control the risk. Workers are most at risk from common tasks including:
Using a cut-off saw on kerbs, blocks, paving slabs, roof tiles and other concrete products
- Chasing, scabbling or grinding concrete
- Drilling or coring for long periods, particularly indoors
- Abrasive pressure blasting
- Cutting and sanding wood with power tools
- Sanding plasterboard jointing
- Dry sweeping
- Internal demolition and soft stripping
Using science and engineering, occupational hygienists can help employers to control or eliminate such workplace hazards as dust and create a healthier workplace. Through good occupational hygiene practice, the risks workers face as a result of exposure to health hazards can be understood and managed.
What is BOHS doing about construction dust?
The high level of ill health experienced by workers in the construction industry, and the lack of awareness of occupational ill health and occupational hygiene measures in the sector, are of deep concern to BOHS and we are determined to help employers tackle the problem.
Working towards this, BOHS has partnered with safety products supplier Arco to produce the Construction Dust An Expert Guide which is also distributed via Arco branches across the country. The guide provides advice on reducing construction dust levels and minimising harm to construction workers.
Don’t let the silent killer of construction dust ruin construction workers’ lives. You can find an occupational hygienist using the BOHS Directory of Occupational Hygiene Services.
Mike Slater is president of the British Occupational Hygiene Society, which was awarded a Royal Charter in 2012. Its membership is drawn from industry, education, government and research.
A couple of other dusts not mentioned are black mould spores and attendant mycotoxins plus the dust from timber that has been subject to heavy woodworm attack. These two both pose a fairly recently recognised risk to those undertaking the refurbishment of old properties.
Another lung disease associated with this construction dust, particularly these two unmentioned ones, is Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. This is considered a pretty rare disease, mainly because it is only recently that the medical profession has had the technology to identify it. What happens is that the lung areolae get scarred and can’t absorb oxygen when we breathe. It is a progressive and terminal illness. At the end of September the British Lung Foundation are holding an Awareness Week to educate the medics as much as the public!
Construction sites are not the only source of breathable silica. Recycling plants based within a few hundred metres of residential housing crush demolition material for recycling as aggregate without any attempt to control dust emission, covering the whole area with dust which is 80% silica based, and Local Authorities deny the existence of the problem in order to maintain their recycling status.