Smooth Flow offers industries with the tools they need to manage the Respirable Crystalline Silica (RSC) occupational hazard

Smooth Flow are pioneering solutions to reduce exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica (RSC).

What is RCS and who is it bad for everyone?

RSC are microscopic fragments of rock crystals which are formed when materials which contain silicate (silicon tetra oxide) crystals.
Silicate makes up over 95% of the Earths crust!
As a result, Silicate based products make up most of the world we live in.
Common things in our daily lifes which can produce RCS when damaged are;

Concrete, concrete dust, bricks, drywall, plaster, rocks, tiles, pavers, cement sheeting, almost anything to be honest.

The reason that these products can be bad for us is because when damaged, part of them are able to break down into tiny crystals, so small the eye cant see.
These can float around in the air for many hours or days, and become airborne easily.
RCS is a specific chemical type of silicate structure which is well know to cause cancer, silicosis, and in rare cases immediate respiritory failure deaths.
Our bodies try to remove the small fibres, but they are resistant to the bodies defenses to clean the lungs.
Over time (due to repeated and ongoing exposure), hundreds of millions of people will suffer from the damage these RCS’s cause our bodies.

What can we do to prevent exposure?

The largest exposure for most people will be through occupation exposures.
Any time a person cuts, drills, polishes, scrapes, hammers, breaks, sands, blasts, etc a material which has the potential to produce RCS’s, they are exposed.
If enough dust is produced, all the people in the work area will also be exposed.
This is called Workplace Exposure, and its happening due to a lack of controls, awareness, dust extraction, tooling and more.
The Workplace Exposure Standard in New Zealand is 0.05 mg/m3.
This number translates to - two grains of rice, ground into fine dust, in a cubic meter of air.
So very very little.
Above which, the risk for persons in the workplace is exposure to RCS and its negative health effects.

To prevent exposure, businesses in New Zealand would comply with the Worksafe Standards for Silica Dust when likely to generate it.
This means that the workers while creating dust must use an H-class vacuum cleaner in accordance with Standard AS/NZS 60335.2.69, fitted with a filter that can achieve an efficiency of 99.995% (eg H14 HEPA filter complying with Standard AS 4260).
These HEPA vacuums specifically made to capture the tiny fibres well.
Because the vacuums and other air scrubbing devices for HEPA purposes are so specialised, their filters are very fragile.
It is a requirement that all HEPA vacuums used by businesses for H-Class dusts are certified to ensure the filter is capturing at the required ammount.
This is called DOP testing. Smooth Flow offers DOP testing on all businesess HEPA vacuums with our on-site mobile truck where we can service/validate your HEPA vacuums.

How do you deal with large sites when its hard to capture with a vacuum?

Smooth Flow will soon have available for hire/purchase in New Zealand, large air scrubbers with H14 HEPA filters to be used when building sites and workplaces will normally be exceeding the Workplace Exposure Standard.
We will offer these exclusively as HAZMAT for Silicate, and the machines will be compact, transportable, 1 phase or 3 phase.

Please contact Smooth Flow to discuss our options further.

References

https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/about-us/news-and-media/accelerated-silicosis/

https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/topic-and-industry/dust/silica-dust-in-the-workplace/