Industrial Dust Collection: The New Imperative to Protect Countertop Workers From Silica Dust Threats

Dust collection and dust abatement is becoming an industry imperative for protecting workers who cut and grind granite and engineered-stone countertops. Much like the first days of coal mining when workers were unknowingly exposed to “black lung,” today’s countertop workers are becoming seriously ill and some have died from silicosis.

The OSHA Initiative to Protect Workers From Silica Dust

OSHA has already established initiatives to safeguard workers from silica dust during stone cutting in “engineered stone fabrication”. According to an OSHA press release, “Supplementing OSHA’s current National Emphasis Program for Respirable Crystalline Silica, this initiative will focus enforcement efforts on industry employers to make sure they’re following required safety standards and providing workers with the protections required to keep them healthy.”

OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) identify silica dust exposure as a health hazard for workers involved in manufacturing, finishing and installing natural and manufactured stone, which includes man-made, engineered artificial or cultured types.

This safety initiative likely applies to workers cutting and grinding engineered-stone countertops, in addition to stone fabrication. Engineered-stone countertops are essentially quartz aggregate held together with a resin binder. They contain substantially higher levels of crystalline silica than natural stone versions. Workers who cut, shape, grind, and polish these countertops may be exposed to significant amounts of silica dust, which can lead to the lung disease known as silicosis.

Fortunately, silicosis is preventable. In this blog, we’ll look at how Duroair™ industrial dust collection systems can help you better protect your workers from airborne silica threats and help ensure compliance with the latest OSHA safety initiatives.

Modular Industrial Air Filtration for Silica Dust Collection

Whether you’re cutting natural stone or engineered-stone countertops, stone cutting is one of the messiest operations in manufacturing – and the most hazardous. Cutting and grinding clouds of dust can contain silica particles that can scar the lungs or lead to silicosis. But dust abatement during these processes is no easy task. Some employers have attempted to use foldable paint booths to mitigate the dust, but many of these portable paint booths are not specifically designed for dust collection.

Duroair engineers best-in-class, industrial dust collection systems and filtration technology. Plus, our dust collection systems can be engineered with our DuroRoom™ softwall enclosure that can retract to 20 percent of its length. DuroRoom is portable, so you can mitigate silica dust where and when you need it.

4 Types of Modular Dust Collection for Worker Protection

Duroair offers four types of dust collection that can be customized by particle size (NESHAP 319 and HEPA) and the volume of dust generated to deliver the optimal protection for workers as required by OSHA. These include:

1. Duroair’s ambient dust collector, DuroTower™, is designed for mitigating dust, as well as smoke and mist found in many shop environments.
2. Our recirculating system, DuroDust™, is engineered for moderate levels of dust production. This non-vented solution is effective for protecting against silica dust, as well as hexavalent chromium produced in other surfacing and MRO processes.
3. Our vented solution, the DuroCollector™, works for operations such as stone fabrication and engineered-stone cutting that produce larger volumes of dust.
4. Our DuroTable™ is a custom, downdraft table complete with multi-stage filtration and custom table-top size. It’s the ideal dust collection table for grinding, sanding, and welding, because it requires no ducting, air makeup, or EPA permits

The above dust collection systems can be used with the DuroRoom™ retractable enclosure to isolate and contain dust as the dust is generated – creating a safe and clean working environment within a larger space.

Industrial Dust Collection Improves Worker Productivity and Efficiency

Duroair’s four-stage filtration technology captures silica dust by size, not by weight. Each dust collection system captures 100 percent of dust particles to 1 micron and 95 percent of dust particles to 0.4 micron, exceeding OSHA’s 25 μg/m3 requirement.

In addition to the obvious safety benefits, this type of dust collection and industrial air filtration can provide you and your employees with:

• Properly-vented, regulated work areas that limit exposure of employees to respirable silica.
• Negative pressure enclosures that pull all particulates into the filters, enabling employees to safely see the project they are working on and greatly increasing productivity.
• Enclosures that retract to less than 20 percent of extended length, allowing for easy material handling and access to overhead cranes.
• Portable air filtration via our DuroRoom and DuroDust that can be moved anywhere in a shop space – with only power needed.
• Diamond wire-cutting enclosures to protect against higher quantities of dust for harder varieties of stone.

Duroair: Going Beyond Compliance to Meet Your Goals

In addition to our industrial dust collection systems, Duroair engineers end-to-end air filtration solutions for isolating, capturing, and containing a wide variety of industrial processes. We design clean-air solutions that are responsive to the manufacturing reality of your lean production systems.

Contact us to learn how we can customize a clean-air solution, such as a dust collection system, that is better for compliance, for overall employee health and safety, and for your bottom line.