Silica Dust
The dust from cutting concrete doesn't hurt today. Silicosis shows up twenty years later, incurable, from exposures that each seemed like no big deal at the time.
How to run it
Read it through once, then talk it — don't recite it. Five minutes at the start of the shift, crew standing where the work happens. Under O. Reg. 213/91, s. 14(3)–(4), the talk is held by a supervisor or a competent person the supervisor appoints — and the sign-in sheet is what proves it happened.
Talk through these points
- Know where it comes from: cutting, grinding, drilling, or breaking concrete, masonry, and stone releases respirable crystalline silica.
- Wet methods first — water on the blade kills most of the dust at the source.
- Dust collection on the tool where wet isn't practical: shrouds and HEPA vacs, actually attached and actually running.
- The right respirator, fitted, when controls can't do it all — a dust mask from the gas station is not that.
- Don't dry-sweep the aftermath. Sweeping silica dust just airborne-launches it again — vacuum or wet it down.
- Protect the crew around the cut too — dust doesn't respect the ten feet between you and the guy on the saw.
Ask the crew
- Which of our cutting tasks are still running dry?
- Where's the water feed / HEPA vac, and does the crew actually use it?
- Who has been fit-tested for their respirator?
The answers are the real talk. If a question lands on a live hazard, write it down and assign it a name and a date.
Paper it
A talk without a record didn't happen, as far as anyone who asks is concerned. Print these free:
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