Hi Mary, thank you for your thought provoking article. I thoroughly agree with your overall tenet that control is more important than sampling (those who have had the misfortune to hear me preach will understand). However, in my couple of years’ experience there are far more effective and cost efficient ways (I believe we also have a moral duty in this respect) of achieving improved controls. Firstly you gave a very good example of a client ringing you with limited knowledge. The person you are speaking to is obviously resistant to anything except sampling (not unusual). Dead horse flogging comes to mind and you will probably lose that client to a cheap pump jockey. You mention a pre-site visit. Unless this is a major project I think this is not necessary. Would the cost of a pre-site visit be added to the client’s bill, which might be better spent on LEV? oops ..exceeded max character limit ..more to follow
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Hi Alvin. Glad you enjoyed reading 🙂 Yes, a pre site visit can be one way to get to know the client better beforehand and understand where their sampling strategy is coming from. Meeting on Teams as well. Asking for videos, pictures, their RAs, their HRP outcome, any of this can help too. Each situation will be different and depend on what the client can / is willing to share. We hope that getting to know their workplace health risks in this way beforehand will make us better able to advise. We definitely don’t want to take any money away from controls. But we need to balance this with knowing that our advice will help them make better focused decisions, including budget spend.
Alvin, you are completely correct (steady on there Richard 😁). All of our regulations start with "Control...). There is a clue in the name.
Consultant Occupational Hygienist at Hygea Plus
9moOn a more serious note, I have conducted a flour dust survey at a large shortbread maker. In general dust levels were not high, i.e. below the exposure limit. However, they batch prepped the dough by the tonne and at the initial mixing of the dough there was a very significant peak in dust levels , well above the OEL. Given flour is a respiratory sensitizer such peaks can represent a sensitizing event. Other than that the work place was in a series of large connected sheds with good ventilation and good segregation of the different work processes. My conclusion was that they needed good lip extraction around the mixing bowls. On another occasion I conducted some flour dust measurements in the galley of a drilling rig. This is a much smaller working environment with low ceilings, very congested and with minimal HVAC mostly focused around the range for heat control. The baker prepared bread, rolls and pastries each day for the crew. Dust levels were above the OEL and remained above for a significant amount of time because of the poor ventilation. A potential solution is to provide more enclosed mixing equipment. Trying to install LEV for such a small operation in such a congested area would not be practicable.