Flour Dust Exposure Monitoring

Control the exposure of your workforce by Flour Dust Monitoring.

Background to Flour Dust Exposure Monitoring

Flour dust exposure is prevalent amongst bakeries, mills and the catering industry as a whole.

The HSE refers to flour as a respiratory sensitiser. In other words, it has the potential to cause occupational asthma to those exposed to it. Occupational asthma can occur at any time and any exposure. However, it is far more likely to occur with increased exposure. Once flour sensitizes a worker, even small amounts in the air will cause increasingly severe reactions. Sensitivity is permanent once it happens and will prevent that person from handling flour or being in the vicinity of flour again. For this reason, monitoring for exposure to flour dust is essential.

Exposure Limits for Flour

HSE document EH40 provides an 8-hour limit for airborne flour of 10 mg.m-3 and a 15-minute limit of 30 mg.m-3. Despite the provision of a limit, because flour dust is a sensitiser, the HSE requires employers to control it to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP). This rule applies even if a worker’s exposure is below the limit. If further control measures are available to a company, then they should employ them. Employers must minimise exposure because there is no safe exposure level to sensitisers.

Monitoring Flour Dust Exposure

Monitoring for Flour Dust

The HSE specifies the method of monitoring the workplace air for flour dust in document MDHS 14/4. To measure flour dust, the consultant will use an IOM head. This head is attached, using a tube, to a sample pump fastened to the belt of the operative. The consultant then positions the sampling head that contains a pre-weighed filter in the breathing zone of the worker. That is to say, within 300mm of the mouth and nose. The laboratory analyses the filter following MDHS 14/4.

Controlling Exposure

On sites handling flour, the HSE expect employers to utilise local exhaust ventilation (LEV) systems to control exposure. For this reason, Companies have a legal obligation to tested and maintain these systems as per HSE guidance HSG258 ‘Controlling airborne contaminants at work’. Synergy’s Occupational Hygiene Consultants offer these testing services and recommend combining flour monitoring with LEV testing whenever possible.

The HSE provides the FL series of guidance for employers regarding the use of flour to reduce exposures as far as possible. Also, the HSE expect exposure to be below 20% of the workplace exposure limit.