Silica dust is the asbestos of this generation, and regulators are treating it that way. If your workers cut, grind, drill, crush or blast concrete, stone, brick, tile or engineered materials, you have a duty to assess and control their exposure. BBN's occupational hygienists measure actual exposure on your sites, compare it against the workplace exposure standard, and hand you a control plan that works on a real site, not just on paper.
Queensland WHS law requires air monitoring where there is a risk that exposure to respirable crystalline silica could exceed the workplace exposure standard, with specific duties for construction, tunnelling and stone work. Health monitoring is required for workers at significant risk. The engineered stone prohibition has sharpened regulator attention across every silica-generating trade, not just benchtops. The starting point of every duty is the same: know your numbers. That means personal exposure monitoring, done properly, by a qualified occupational hygienist.
Our hygienists attend your site and fit workers with personal sampling equipment worn through a representative shift, on the actual tasks that generate the dust. Samples are analysed to Australian Standard methods and results are assessed against the workplace exposure standard, adjusted for your shift lengths. You receive a clear report: who is exposed, doing what task, to how much, and where that sits against the standard. No jargon wall. A site manager can read it and act the same day.
An exceedance is not the end of the assessment; it is the start of the fix. We rank controls in order of effectiveness for your specific tasks: elimination and substitution first, then engineering controls like water suppression and on-tool extraction, then administrative controls, with respiratory protection as the last line rather than the whole plan. Then we retest, because a control that has not been verified is a hope, not a control.
Where workers are at significant risk from silica exposure, health monitoring is a legal requirement, including low-dose CT and lung function testing under the current framework. Our exposure data identifies exactly which workers meet the threshold, so you are monitoring the right people rather than everyone or no one. We coordinate with occupational physicians so the exposure records and health surveillance line up.
