Shoutout to the guy who proved me wrong about silica dust masks

I've been laying brick for 22 years and always thought a basic dust mask was good enough for silica. Last month an OSHA inspector showed me a study from the CDC that said silica dust particles are 100 times smaller than what those masks catch. I pulled up the PDF on my phone right there at the job site near the mixer. Now I'm using a proper half-face respirator and telling everyone on my crew to do the same. Has anyone else actually read the numbers on what gets through those cheap paper masks?

2 comments

2 Comments

nora5418d ago

And I get where you're coming from, but I've been wearing those cheap paper masks for 15 years and never had a lung issue pop up. A half-face respirator is a pain to keep clean and fog up your glasses on a humid day. Maybe the numbers are there, but real world experience counts for something too.

ray_carr18d ago

Yeah, I remember reading something about this a couple years back in some safety newsletter. It said the real issue is that silica dust is basically like ground-up glass at a microscopic level, and once it's in your lungs it just stays there and keeps tearing things up. The paper masks don't even slow it down much. I saw a video from NIOSH where they used a black light to show how much dust still gets through the cheap ones after just a few minutes. Scared the hell out of me.