Silica: Hazard Alert

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Center to Protect Workers' Rights
• Description:
  One of the most dangerous kinds of dust you can breathe is crystalline silica. Silica is in sand, rock, masonry, concrete, and some paints. (Quartz is silica.) You can be exposed to silica when you work with these materials in abrasive blasting, cutting/sawing, jackhammering, grinding, drilling, crushing, or dry sweeping - or during demolition of concrete or masonry structures. The Hazards: In the lungs, silica can cause silicosis, which scars air sacs and keeps oxygen from getting in the blood. Silicosis can cause shortness of breath. Sometimes it can kill you. And it increases your chance of getting tuberculosis (TB) and lung cancer. Many industrial countries have restricted the use of silica sand for sandblasting. Silicosis usually takes about 20 years to develop, but you can get it after 5 to 10 years; it depends on how much silica you are exposed to and if you are protected. Or you can get silicosis after a few weeks if you work in thick clouds of crystalline silica and you are not protected. (This happened to tunnel workers who cut through hard rock and were not protected.) You can be in danger even if you do not see dust. Silicosis can get worse years after you are away from the dust. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Aluminum Silicates Communicable Disease Control Construction Industry Construction Materials Dust Lung Lung Diseases Neoplasms Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Respiratory Protective Devices Respiratory System Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety Safety Management Silicon Dioxide Workplace

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• Keywords:
  Abrasive-blasting Abrasive-grinding Cements Concretes Construction Construction-equipment Construction-industry Construction-materials Construction-workers Demolition-industry Disease-control Disease-prevention Dust-exposure Dust-inhalation Dust-particles Dusts Grinding-equipment Jack-hammers Lung-cancer Lung-disease Lung-disorders Masons Personal-protective-equipment Pulmonary-system-disorders Respirators Respiratory-system-disorders Safety-education Safety-measures Safety-practices Sand-blasters Sand-blasting Silica-dusts Silicates Silicosis Tunnel-workers Tunneling Work-environment Work-practices Worker-health

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• Series:
  CPWR - Center for Construction Research and Training Publications
• Subseries:
  Hazard Alerts
• Publisher:
  The Center to Protect Workers' Rights
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  2 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20039611
• Citation:
  Silver Spring, MD: The Center to Protect Workers' Rights, 2004 Dec; :1-2
• Contact Point Address:
  Building and Construction Trades Dept., AFL-CIO: CPWR, Suite 1000, 8484 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910
• CAS Registry Number:
  Quartz (SiO2) (CAS RN 14808-60-7) ; Silica (CAS RN 7631-86-9)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2005
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Performing Organization:
  CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training, Silver Spring, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20040801
• Source Full Name:
  Silica: hazard alert
• End Date:
  20090630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3b64c5c8038aaf7c170cc629613064b8e9d23e35c38dc91e5c81547db48bb31f27a7368f50911f25046478f580d2b1c899fdd264ae0dc80d02aeb8d24508f2c2
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/213098/cdc_213098_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 32.45 KB ]