Occupational lung diseases

To protect workers from breathing in hazardous substances, you must identify if there are any hazardous substances at your workplace. 

You can do this by:

• looking at your workplace
• talking and consulting with your workers
• reading any labels and safety data sheets
• talking with your WHS regulator
• engaging a professional such as an occupational hygienist.

Once you have identified the hazard, you need to undertake a risk assessment to consider what could happen if your workers are exposed to the hazardous substance and the likelihood of it happening. You should consider:

• how, where and for how long workers could be exposed to the hazardous substance
• the control measures you have in place to control the hazardous substance
• the ways you can measure how well your control measures work.

It is important to consider everyone in a workplace who may be impacted by hazards. This could include tradespeople, suppliers, and on-site office staff.

As well as following the above steps, there are specific work health and safety duties that apply when working with any material that contains 1% or more crystalline silica. This includes natural and artificial stone, bricks, tiles and cement. Please refer to the model Code of Practice: Managing risks of respirable crystalline silica in the workplace for more information on these duties.

For more information see the resources for your state or territory. 

You must implement control measures to manage the risk of breathing in hazardous substances.

Eliminating the risk of breathing in hazardous substances must always be considered first. 

Examples of elimination can include:

• using products or materials that don’t contain the hazardous substance
• eliminating the need to undertake the task that releases the hazardous substance into the air.

In some cases, elimination might not be possible. Where this occurs, you should work through the hierarchy of control measures.

Substitution

Substitution controls involve replacing the hazard with something safer, for example:

• using products or materials with lower levels of the hazardous substance or containing alternative substances that are less hazardous.

Isolation

Isolation controls involve isolating the hazard from people, for example:

• completing the task that releases the hazardous substance in an enclosed, well-ventilated space that is separated from people.

Engineering

Engineering controls involve using a physical control measure, such as a mechanical device or process, for example:

• using wet cutting, local exhaust ventilation and on-tool dust extraction system.

If you are working with a material that contains 1% or more crystalline silica such as artificial or natural stone, bricks, tiles or cement, you must implement one or more engineering or isolation control measures to manage the risks of exposure to silica dust.

Administrative

If you’ve worked through the hierarchy of control measures and risk remains, you must minimise the risk by implementing administrative controls, for example:

• planning tasks to minimise the quantity of the hazardous substance being released into the air
• establishing policies about working with the hazardous substance and clean up requirements
• installing signage alerting people of the risks involved and how to minimise them.

Personal protective equipment 

Personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks, is the least effective control measure because it does not control the risk at the source. PPE should only be considered after implementing substitution, isolation, engineering, and administrative controls. You should use PPE to supplement higher-level control measures. 

In some situations, higher-level control measures might not control the risk fully. In these cases, PPE must also be used.

Implementing measures for controlling hazardous substances aren’t simply ‘set and forget’. Regularly monitor and review them to make sure they are still effective and are working as intended.

If you’ve implemented measures to control dusts, gases, fumes, or vapours, you must review them:

• when the control measure is not effective in controlling the risk
• before a change at your workplace that is likely to give rise to a new or different health and safety risk that the control measure may not effectively control
• if a new hazard or risk is identified
• if the results of consultation indicate that a review is necessary
• if a health and safety representative requests a review.