Workers in construction, manufacturing, tunnelling, demolition, mining, quarrying and stonemasonry can be exposed to silica dust at work.
Work activities that can produce silica dust include:
- creating, installing and changing engineered stone benchtops
- digging, earth moving and drilling
- clay and stone processing
- paving and surfacing
- mining, quarrying and mineral ore treating
- tunnelling
- construction labouring
- brick, concrete, tile or stone cutting; especially using dry methods
- abrasive blasting (blasting product must not contain more than 1% of crystalline silica)
- factory metal casting
- angle grinding, jack hammering and chiselling of concrete or stone
- hydraulic fracturing of gas and oil wells, and
- pottery making.
Employers have a legal duty to protect workers by managing the health and safety risks from silica dust.
Workers also have a legal duty to take reasonable care of their own, and others, health and safety at work.
Information for:
If you work in construction, manufacturing, tunnelling, demolition, mining, quarrying, or stonemasonry, you may be exposed to silica dust at work.
Managing risks
Your employer must protect you, and anyone else in the workplace, from risks to your health and safety like silica dust.
They must put in place control measures to remove, or reduce, exposure to silica dust.
Control measures can include wet cutting, on-tool dust removal, local exhaust ventilation, isolation booths, and protective breathing equipment.
As a worker, you have a responsibility to protect yourself and other people around you at work.
This includes obeying work health and safety instructions, policies and procedures to protect you from breathing in dust and wearing appropriate breathing protection equipment.
Talk to your employer about what they are doing to manage the risks of silica dust at your work.
If you are worried about a serious risk to your health and safety, you have the right to stop or refuse to carry out work. If you do this, you must inform your employer as soon as you can.
Health monitoring
If you are exposed, suspected of being exposed or are concerned about exposure to silica dust , your employer is required to provide you with access to health monitoring.
Health monitoring is undertaken by a doctor and will help to make sure the control measures in place are working and identify if your health is being affected by silica dust.
You may also be able to access health checks and testing provided by your work health and safety regulator.
Supporting links
- Crystalline silica and silicosis page on the Safe Work Australia website.
- Working with silica and silica containing products guidance material.
- model Code of Practice: Managing the risks of respirable crystalline silica from engineered stone in the workplace.
Contact your work health and safety regulator for advice or for information about laws in your jurisdiction.
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.
As an employer, you must manage the health and safety risks of silica dust at work and keep workers and others’ exposure at your workplace as low as possible.
There are rules to prohibit uncontrolled processing of engineered stone.
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. You need to put in place 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 control measures are working and the workplace exposure standard for respirable crystalline silica (0.05 mg/m3 (eight-hour time weighted average)) isn’t being exceeded.
Provide health monitoring. Arrange health monitoring for workers exposed, or at risk of being exposed, to silica dust. You and your workers may also be able to access health checks and testing provided by your work health and safety regulator.
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
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 to protect workers from exposure to silica dust.
Supporting links
- Crystalline silica and silicosis page on the Safe Work Australia website.
- Working with silica and silica containing products guidance material.
- model Code of Practice: Managing the risks of respirable crystalline silica from engineered stone in the workplace.
Contact your work health and safety regulator for advice or for information about laws in your jurisdiction.
Consumer products containing silica only pose a risk if they are modified or disturbed in a way that creates dust – such as by cutting, grinding or polishing.
You should contact a qualified tradesperson if any modifications to silica containing products are required.
Under WHS laws, the person carrying out work (such as the tradesperson) must ensure the safety of workers and others at the workplace.
For example, if work is taking place at a home, they must ensure the safety of anyone at the home and must put in place control measures to manage the risks of exposure to silica dust.