Silica Dust: A Major Contributor to Pollution
One of the major contributors to pollution is construction in the natural environment. Of all pollutants of construction, dust from construction is the most substantial pollutant that impacts the health of humans (Du et al. 2019). One of the most common minerals found in the earth’s crust was crystalline silica. Sand, concrete, stone, and mortar contain common crystalline silica. Respirable silica is very small particles formed when sawing, cutting, drilling, grinding, stone crushing, brick, and rock (Hoy and Chambers 2020). Activities like sawing concrete or brick, abrasive blasting with sand, drilling or sanding into concrete walls, stone countertops, and cutting or cursing stones result in the exposure of workers to respirable silica dust. When inhaling dust particles or silica particles, workers are developed an increased risk of serious diseases. Surveillance or medical monitoring of workers helps identify the effects related to respirable silica contact (Hoy and Chambers 2020). This report will shed light on health issues for workers when they exposure to silica dust, monitoring strategy used to that are used in identifying silica dust, equipment and method that are used in controlling silica dust in the atmosphere and at last this report further shed light on occupational standard policies that are applied when exposure to silica dust.
When breathing in dust from silica materials, workers lead Dust particles of silica to be trapped in lung tissue, causing serious scarring and inflammation (Lai et al. 2018). Silica dust particles can also decrease the lung’s capacity to take oxygen. Silicosis can lead to lung damage permanently and is a debilitating, progressive, and fatal disease (Lai et al. 2018). Silicosis symptoms include fatigue, cough, chest pain, and shortness of breath. There is no cure for silicosis, and sometimes patients require lung transplantation. Those workers who have silicosis also increase the risk of having (TB) tuberculosis. Some life-threatening diseases are: –
1)- Lung Cancer- It occurs from cells in the body that raise not in our control and develop tumors. These cells are cancerous and attack other body parts, known as metastasis.
2)- (COPD) Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease includes chronic emphysema and bronchitis. (NORA) The national occupational research agenda respiratory cross-sector of health council produced Faces of work-related COPD (Li et al. 2021).
3)-kidney disease- Worker studies have shown growing silica levels exposure are interconnected with growing risks for chronic kidney disease.
4)- Autoimmune disease- Worker studies show that silica exposure is associated with the growing risk of the variability of autoimmune disease (Li et al. 2021).
Air monitoring- It is the method that is used in measuring hazardous airborne substances. It checks the effectiveness of the controlling methods and helps in reducing risk when exposed to silica dust. Silica dust mandatory ACT is average time-weighted average is 8 hours (TWA) of 0.05 mg/m3 (Richards and Brozell 2021). According to the work health and safety regulation 2011 statuses, exposure to workplace standards is not to be surpassed. Monitoring of air must be conducted to reduce potential risks related to health, or limits of exposure could not be surpassed. Adjustments are made in exposure to workplace standards for silica made for stretched shifts of work, explaining longer daily exposure (Richards and Brozell 2021).
Health Risks of Silica Dust Exposure
Health Monitoring -According to the work health and safety regulations act 2011, workers should be monitored who are working at the sites of silica dust. There is a noteworthy risk to the health of workers (Brouwer and Rees 2020).
Specialist doctors and monitoring include carrying out this monitoring,
1)- X-rays or HRCT
2)- Tests of clinical like blood samples and urine.
3)- Spirometry or physical examination (lung function test)
4)- Answering various questions regarding medical history and previous occupation (Brouwer and Rees 2020).
Health monitoring is essential because it helps detect initial symptoms of exposure, like lung function loss, before damaging permanently. These health monitoring for workers working in the silica and silica holding products should begin before placement of job and every three years (Brouwer and Rees 2020).
The world health and safety regulation 2011 formed policies that help in reducing the impact of silica, including:
1)- Select silica-free material or have the lowest silica content (e.g., harsh blasting agents).
2)- To decrease airborne dust using wet methods like spraying water during earthworks, polishing or wet cutting (Zhang et al. 2018).
3)- To reduce the amount of chasing required, design that building with recesses for services.
4)- For mining and dusty earthworks, provide vehicles that contain enclosed cabs fitted with air filters that provide high efficiency (Zhang et al. 2018).
5)- Shadow vacuuming like housekeeping is required, e.g., during the drilling process and use of a vacuum cleaner apart from sweeping.
6)- Use rubber curtains or spray in conveyor transfer points without blowing dust with compressed air (Zhang et al. 2018).
Dust control- Every activity that is generated dust in the workplace should be determined and assessed as an efficient way of decreasing dust airborne pollution. Dust control is achieved by enclosure, water wet suppression method, or system of exhaust ventilation. Management needs to decide and select either external or internal sources (Rees and Murray 2020). Experts needed to select the appropriate method for controlling existing machines, and while installing new machines, dust controlling features should be on a priority basis. All dust controlling equipment must be maintained properly to ensure effective functioning (Rees and Murray 2020).
There are two approaches for monitoring are fixed-point monitoring and personal monitoring;
Personal monitoring- Personal monitoring plays a very effective role in monitoring in the workplace. It can decrease misclassification exposure and has the power to detect relationships between pollution particulate matter and adverse health consequences. This monitoring method involves the sampler placed inside the workers’ breathing zone (Bello et al. 2019). The space between the worker’s mouth and nose must be within 30cm. Personal monitoring helps create the concentration of impurities in air in the breathing zone and hence assesses the worker’s contact with those substances. For example, the lapel of the worker by positioning the sampler. Then, the sampler assembles air samples in the zone of breathing unceasingly even when the worker is moving when working (Bello et al. 2019).
Fixed-point monitoring- In this type of monitoring, air samples are collected in the area of the workplace where the technician is located. It is very useful in recognizing various sources of air impurities, control measures effectiveness confirming, and determining their circulation in the workplace (Bello et al. 2019).
Air Monitoring for Silica Dust Control
Direct measuring methods- This method presents results quickly so that users early assess health-related issues of impurities in the air in the workplace, and it helps respond quickly to protection in workers’ health. A few examples of direct measuring tools are: –
Detector tubes- These tubes are one of the most commonly used methods used in monitoring air. Detector tubes are very simple to use, and these tubes are mainly used to determine the concentration of vapor or gas in the air (Port et al. 2020). For detecting different air impurities, different types of tubes are available. The main classes of detector tubes are; diffusive tubes and hand-pump-based tubes (Port et al. 2020).
(a)- Hand-pump detector tube is functioned by connecting an unsealed tube to a hand pump. By manually operating the pump, the air is drawn into the tube. If a relevant impurity is present in the air, the chemicals present in the tube will react by changing color. The air impurity concentration is measured by the intensity and length of the color change. For example, ozone is produced from prototyping and vaporized toluene from solvents used in printing (Port et al. 2020).
(b)- For long-term measurement, diffusive detectors are used by diffusion of the concentration of air impurities and hand pump use is not required.
These detector tubes have a very small shelf life, and some are subjected to cross-interference. Therefore, manufacturer instructions must be referred to before using detector tubes (Port et al. 2020).
Real-time instrumental devices with different models are available to measure chemical impurities concentrations in the air and display results directly. Some instruments are used to monitor the different environments, as they are portable. For example, the multi-gas detector in air testing before in confirmed space and measuring the concentration of dust in construction sites dust monitor are placed (Chen et al. 2021). Few instrumental devices are planned for unceasing fixed-point monitoring. For example, detectors like chlorine gas are fitted in the rooms where flattened chlorine gas cylinders are used or stored. This type of detector helps users safely stay in autonomous control room in remotely monitoring any leakage in rooms of storage (Chen et al. 2021).
Air Sampling method- Air impurities concentrations are determined by collecting air impurities and air samples by sampling air devices for laboratory analysis. With better testing methods and analytical instruments, exact measurements are obtained. Numerous devices of sampling are designed in different nature (Lan et al. 2020). Examples of sampling devices are; gas bags, cyclone sampler for sampling silica dust respirable, sampling organic vapor for charcoal absorbent tube, sampling metal fumes for devices, and cowl sampler for sampling airborne asbestos fibre (Lan et al. 2020).
(OSHA) the occupational safety and health administration amends its current standards for occupational exposure to silica crystalline respirable (Barnes et al. 2021).
Occupational exposure limits for crystalline silica-containing dust,
1)-Dust exposure is decreased to the lowest reasonably practicable.
2)- Those working on construction sites are exposed to dust particles. Their average shift will not surpass the occupational exposure limit, an 8-hour working day (OEL-TWA) (Barnes et al. 2021).
Health Monitoring for Workers Exposed to Silica Dust
3)- Crystalline silica has numerous forms. Most commonly and abundant is Quartz found in Hong Kong. Two more are there, tridymite and cristobalite, encountered in building materials. Crystalline silica (respirable dust) Quartz contains 0.1, cristobalite contains 0.05, and tridymite contains 0.05 OEL-TWA (mg/m).
4)- The duration of is shift is different from 8 hours. To ensure adequate worker protection OEL-TWA is adjusted. Pieces of Advice from experts are wanted in these modifications of occupational exposure limits (Barnes et al. 2021).
Occupational exposure limit mentions to chemical substances time-weighted average concentration over five days a week and eight working hours, to which all workers are exposed in day after day without having any adverse effect in the environment (Barnes et al. 2021).
Conclusion
Controlling and reducing the effect of silica is a tough task because most of the construction industry is related to all these activities. But there are two primary methods that most construction industries are implementing: vacuum collection of dust and wet cutting method. Both of these methods are very effective in controlling the effect of silica exposure in the atmosphere. Construction sites are frequently involved in numerous operational activities while generating respirable dust of silica. That’s why it is essential to utilize effective controlling methods to minimize the effect of silica-exposed operator tools and exposures that are potential to other employees. Workers need to monitor exposure periodically to ensure proper working tools and respiratory protection of appropriate levels are being used. OSHA and NIOSH regulation plays a very important role in regulating the control of exposure to silica.
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