Evaluation of Workers' Exposure to Total, Respirable and Silica Dust and the Related Health Symptoms in Senjedak Stone Quarry, Iran

Abstract

± 1.6 × × × × × 10 -2 mg/m 3 respectively, which belonged to the exposure of the workers of hammer drill process. The prevalence of skin and respiratory symptoms were higher in hammer drill workers, however, respiratory symptoms showed no significant prevalence. Regarding the average age of workers (31.6 ± 1.9 yr) and average of their work history (3.8 ± 1.0 yr), these results were predictable.

Evaluation of Workers’ Exposure to Methylene Diphenyl Diisocyanate (MDI) in an Automobile Manufacturing Company, Iran

“…Petsonk et al, however, estimated that the incidence of wood product plant asthma is only 27% in areas with the highest potential for exposure to liquid MDI monomers [8]. Furthermore, there are many occupational health symptoms among workers exposed to MDI in developing countries due to the numerous uncontrolled health hazards present in the working environment [20,21,22]; therefore, more investigations should be performed on MDI and other isocyanates as well as on their control in the working environment.…”

Dust formed during drilling in natural stone quarries

“…The knowledge of dust emissions from quarries is limited and consistency of results is low. A number of studies (Organiscak and Page 1995 ;Junttila et al 1996 ;Aatos 2003 ;Golbabaei et al 2004 ;Organiscak and Page 2005 ;Olusegun et al 2009 ;Bada et al 2013 ;Degan et al 2013 ;Sairanen 2014 ) have emphasis on dust formation during the drilling. Dust concentrations from drilling varied between approximately 100 -110,000 µg TSP/m (Sairanen et al 2016(Sairanen et al 2017.…”

“…Drilling in open pit quarry, where also other quarrying processes (crushing) appeared, had significantly higher dust concentrations: approximately 5000 µg PM /m (Degan et al 2013 ), on average 14,000 µg TSP/m (Junttila et al 1996 ) and approximately 16,000 µg PM /m (Olusegun et al 2009 ). The highest reported concentrations were measured in natural stone quarry in Iran, where TSP and PM concentrations varied 78,000-110,000 and 6000-11,000 µg/m , respectively (Golbabaei et al 2004 ).…”

“…Dust formed during the drilling, e.g. in a marble quarry contained approximately 0.2-0.6% crystalline silica (Golbabaei et al 2004 ). Hedges ( 2016 ) observed that the finer the respirable dust particles the greater proportion of the finer particles, which are crystalline silica.…”

Occupational hazard prevention and control in a quarry environment: exposure to airborne dust

“…Numerous authors have focused on monitoring emission levels with respect to the main sources in quarries, concentrating especially on unpaved roads used by site machinery and vehicles [5][6][7], drilling and cutting rock, and work on the quarry face [8,9], as well as meteorological aspects, and techniques of measurement of particulate emissions [10,11]. Much literature may be found in relation to the extractive industry about the evaluation of worker exposure to airborne particulates, especially regarding respirable crystalline silica [12,13] , but also studies concerning inert dust in quarries [14,15] as well as those aimed at evaluating the adverse effects of exposure to airborne particulates on workers' health [16]. In this framework, much in-depth research has been conducted with regard to mitigation and control of the concentration of airborne particulates especially in relation to the environment [17,18], whereas there would appear to be lack of research regarding the effectiveness of containment measures on the daily dose absorbed by workers.…”