#OSHA BREATHING ZONE HOW TO#

The type of sampling required by OSHA's substance-specific standards is called personal breathing zone sampling.

#OSHA BREATHING ZONE HOW TO#

As a practical matter, once the person performing the sampling becomes proficient with generally accepted industrial hygiene practices such as how to calibrate the sampling equipment, how to place the equipment on employees, what field information to document and how to properly handle the samples and submit them to the laboratory, it is then just a matter of repeating those tasks without the need to make the types of professional judgments that are best left to the CIHs. Since sampling to meet the requirements of substance-specific standards is routine and repetitive, it can easily be performed by someone other than a certified industrial hygienist. Ethylene oxide is a feed stock for some chemical manufacturing processes and is commonly found in hospitals, where it is used to sterilize delicate medical devices. For example, coke oven emissions are found only in steel mills that have coke ovens and cotton dust is found only in facilities that process raw cotton. Other substances are found only in a few very specific settings. Methylene chloride is a common industrial solvent and often used for paint removal and furniture stripping. Employees may be exposed to these substances when they perform operations such as spray painting with materials containing these pigments or when they perform welding or oxy-fuel gas cutting on metal surfaces protected by lead- or cadmium-containing coatings. Some of the substances such as lead, cadmium and methylene chloride may be found in many workplace settings.įor example, lead and cadmium pigments are used in some industrial paints and coatings. Moreover, these substance-specific standards require that periodic sampling be performed on a regular basis such as monthly or quarterly. However, there are a handful of substances (Table I) that specifically require that air sampling be performed. Although the most practical way of making this determination is to perform air sampling, sampling is not mandated for the vast majority of the substances that OSHA regulates. Instead, it simply requires that employee exposures to the regulated chemicals remain below the PEL. Although OSHA has airborne limits for these substances, the agency does not specifically require that air sampling be performed to evaluate employee exposures to most of these substances. The OSHA standards list permissible exposure limits (PELs) for about 600 chemicals, such as acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, toluene and ethyl alcohol, that are commonly found in the industrial environment. Perhaps the best example of this is the periodic routine sampling required by OSHA's substance-specific health standards such as lead, methylene chloride and cadmium.

Some sampling, however, can be adequately performed by a trained technician. I tried to demystify industrial hygiene sampling process in a logical step-by-step manner, while demonstrating typical industrial hygiene sampling equipment and providing a caveat that air sampling that required a lot of professional judgments should be left to the CIHs. Still others thought that they would incur the wrath of industrial hygienists if they encroached on their sacred turf. Others were bewildered by the seemingly endless array of gadgets and gizmos that industrial hygienists used to perform their magic and felt that they lacked the requisite skills to use such arcane hardware. Some participants seemed to view industrial hygiene as wizardry practiced by magicians who did mystical things to test workplace air. Discussions with participants in these courses revealed that many otherwise (apparently) competent safety practitioners were intimidated by the very thought of doing any type of industrial hygiene air sampling other than perhaps evaluating a confined space prior to entry. You don't have to be a certified industrial hygienist to do personal air sampling.' That's what I've told hundreds of participants in introductory industrial hygiene courses I have taught since 1994.

Osha breathing zone