Plant&Equipment

special report
Lifting
the veil
on Dust
Dust is THE topic for health, safety
and welfare practitioners at present
and there is currently a flurry of activity
within trade and professional bodies
to produce appropriate guidance
documents. Perhaps one of the most
useful resources to be found is the lively
on-line discussion forum established
by the Health and Safety Executive
(details below). Various contributions
have been made to date as part of a
constructive debate and the discussions
are extremely useful and enlightening.
One line of discussion has focused upon
what can be done to reduce the risk
posed by dust and many have suggested
that the risk should be designed
out completely at project inception.
Essentially, the theory is that if the need
for electric or mechanical power tools is
designed out, then the risk is eliminated
at source. This philosophy also
conveniently fits into the construction
and highway industries’ push for
standardisation of building components,
off site manufacture and buildability,
leading ultimately to cost reductions and
productivity improvements. The question
is, does such a philosophy work in real
life? The answer is simply NO.
If the construction industry produced factory controlled
utilitarian concrete boxes in place of dynamic construction
projects, and there was no existing housing stock or
infrastructure to maintain, then designing out the risk could
work. In reality, it will only work for those new projects that
can manufacture components and simply assemble them
on site. For all other construction and highways projects
a more holistic approach is needed. Although this should
include consideration of designing out the risk, thought
must also be given to dust suppression, dust extraction,
the safe use of PPE, operator training, innovative tool
design and so forth. Of course it would be idyllic if design
could be the solution to the dust problem, but this would
require an industry that does not have to renovate old
buildings, demolish existing structures, repair
underground services or maintain existing
structures. As long as industry has to deal with
muck and bullets, dust will remain a problem
and therefore industry needs resources,
facilities and innovations to reduce the risk
posed. The key has to be education and what
is good about the HSE forum is that it has very
successfully engendered the debate so that
solutions are already in the making
To add your voice to this debate, visit the:
Project for Reducing Respiratory Disease
in Kerb, Paving and Block Cutting
URL: http://webcommunities.hse.gov.uk/
inovem/inovem.ti/kerbcutting.community
February 2008
15