Woodworking can come with its dangers with one of those dangers being that of wood dust.
It should be noted that wood dust can cause serious and often irreversible health problems with these including sino-nasal cancer, asthma, dermatitis and more. Therefore, employers have a legal responsibility to prevent or control exposure in the workplace.
Throughout 2023/2024 HSE will be inspecting a variety of woodworking businesses. This is part of a strategy to reduce cases of work-related illness. There is a particular focus on occupational lung disease and the devastating impact this can have on an employee’s life both in and outside of work.
Over the course of 2022 and 2023 HSE carried out more than 1,000 woodworking inspections and found 78% of businesses were not compliant in protecting workers from respiratory sensitisers. These include softwood, hardwood, and composite material dust. As a result, 402 enforcement actions were taken by the HSE.
HSE identified four main areas of concern from this process:
- Dry sweeping; dry sweeping and the use of compressed airlines should be avoided when cleaning as these will result in dust clouds which will only redistribute the dust.
- Local exhaust ventilation (LEV); wood dust should be controlled at its source to prevent it from spreading into the workplace and affecting workers.
- Face fit testing; face fit testing is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of an individual worker’s respirator. Every face is different, so a face fit test is necessary to ensure a respirator is fitted correctly.
- Health surveillance; woodworking employers have a legal responsibility to provide health surveillance for their employees as there is disease associated with wood dust.
Not only should necessary health and safety training be carried out for employees to ensure a safe working environment for themselves and their colleagues, it can be seen that face fit testing also plays a key role in protecting worker’s health.
As a company we offer a variety of health and safety training which can be found here. Amongst our training courses we also offer face fit testing which can be done at your place of work or we also offer a drop-in service at our own premises. To read more about this service you can do so here.
Call us on: 01691688723
Email us at: info@mbo.ltd
Source: Work Right