If you are an employer in construction, manufacturing, tunnelling, demolition, mining, quarrying, or stonemasonry, you and your workers may be exposed to silica dust at work.
You must manage the health and safety risks of silica dust. This includes making sure workers and others at your workplace are not exposed to silica dust above the Workplace Exposure Limit (WEL).
Exposure must be kept as low as possible to protect workers and others in the workplace.
Managing risks
To protect yourself, your workers and others at the workplace from exposure to silica dust, you must use a risk management approach. You must identify the hazards, assess the risks, control the risks, and monitor control measures.
You have duties to:
Identify if silica dust is being produced. This can happen when products that contain crystalline silica such as stone, bricks, concrete and tiles are cut, drilled, polished or ground.
Control the risk of exposure to silica dust. If you can’t eliminate the hazard of silica dust completely, you must keep exposure as low as possible and below the WEL. Use the hierarchy of controls to work out the control measures you need to implement. In most cases, you will need to use a combination of control measures. For example, using wet cutting methods, on-tool dust extraction systems, local exhaust ventilation, and breathing protection.
Conduct air monitoring. You must make sure your control measures are working and that workers are not breathing in harmful levels of silica dust. A qualified professional can do this by taking air samples during normal work activities to check what’s in the air.
Consider health monitoring. You must consider health monitoring for workers who are exposed, or may be exposed, to silica dust. If health monitoring is required, it must be done be a registered medical practitioner and you must arrange and pay for it.
Consult. Talk to your workers and any health and safety representatives about the health and safety risks of silica dust and the control measures in place to manage the risks.
More information
Contact your work health and safety regulator for advice or for information about laws in your jurisdiction.
