A recent ISHN webinar highlighted the often-overlooked hazard of combustible dust, with expert Mark Hanson detailing the devastating consequences of ignoring this workplace threat.

Working around dusts, mists, fumes, aerosols, gases, and vapors can be hazardous to your health. Employers are responsible for determining the need for using respirators in the workplace.

Establishing any construction project is a careful balancing act between many legal, financial and social responsibilities. Firms not only have a responsibility to shareholders and business partners, but to their workers, the local authority and site neighbors in the wider community as well.

Across the globe it’s estimated that 1 in 10 people will become sick due to respiratory hazards encountered in the workplace annually, according to The American Journal of Respiratory Care and Medicine.

What makes dust so harmful for construction workers is that it’s a combination of particles from various materials used on project sites. These fine grains could be heavy metals, asbestos, pollen, silica and much more. 

Although we talk about a company’s bottom line as the reason to implement engineering controls to reduce or eliminate respiratory hazards in the workplace, that doesn’t mean most organizations put profit above worker safety.

As defined by OSHA, combustible dust is “a solid material composed of distinct particles or pieces, regardless of size, shape or chemical composition, which can present a fire or deflagration hazard when suspended in air or some other oxidizing medium over a range of concentrations.”

Operations that produce dust as a byproduct of their processes rely on an industrial dust collection system to provide clean air to the workplace. However, the dust collection system itself could be a source of danger if it isn’t properly equipped and maintained.