Contractors, Tool Industry Ready for OSHA Silica Rule Deadline
Construction companies and equipment suppliers have had one date circled on their calendars all summer—Sept. 23—the day OSHA is set to begin enforcing a rule that sets tougher limits on construction workers’ exposure to breathable silica. “It's been a long time coming,” Steve Smithgall, senior vice president for operations and safety at Balfour Beatty US, among the nation's largest general contractors, recently explained. “They've known since the 1940s that silica is bad for people.”
At equipment manufacturer Bosch Power Tools, the company's director of strategic development, Jim Bohn, said he can measure interest in the rule by tracking purchases of tools and attachments designed to prevent silica exposure. “Since the end of July, there's been a three-fold increase in orders,” Bohn said. “(Buyers) understand what they need.” The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the final rule in March 2016, following decades of debate on whether to approve tougher requirements on how much airborne silica workers can be exposed to without triggering debilitating lung illnesses. OSHA expects the regulations to prevent 642 deaths annually and 918 moderate to severe silicosis cases.
The agency initially set June 23 as the compliance deadline for builders, but the Trump administration extended the deadline by three months. For construction, the silica rule sets a permissible exposure limit (PEL) for airborne crystalline silica of 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air (50 µg/m3), 80 percent less than the old construction limit of 250 µg/m3 set in 1971. The 50 microgram limit also applies to general industry and maritime employers, but their compliance deadline comes later on June 23, 2018. Tool manufacturers are offering a range of new designs and attachments to limit the amount of silica-laden dust at construction sites.
Companies such as DeWalt, Milwaukee Tool and Bosch have responded with hand tools that have built-in vacuums, filters and collector boxes as well as kits that attach to tools. A common answer for hand-held tools used to drill or punch their way into concrete is to vacuum away the dust at the contact point, then contain the collected dust. Buying gear to comply with the silica rule comes at the same time battery powered cordless tools are becoming more popular, DeWalt's concrete product manager, Ricky Cacchiotti, explained. Click here to read more.
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