Silica Awareness
General info only. These talks don't replace your company's safety program, your site rules, or OSHA rules. Follow those first, and ask your safety lead if something here doesn't match.
Start here
Cutting, grinding, or drilling concrete, block, brick, and stone makes fine dust you can't always see. Breathing it over time can do lasting damage to your lungs.
Key points
- Know which tasks make silica dust: cutting, grinding, drilling, chipping, and sweeping dry dust.
- Use water to keep dust down, or tools with a vacuum and dust shroud.
- Don't dry sweep or use compressed air to clean up silica dust. Use a wet method or a HEPA vacuum.
- Wear the respirator your company calls for, and make sure it fits and is checked.
- Work upwind when you can, and keep others out of the dust zone.
- Wash up before eating, and don't take dusty clothes home if you can avoid it.
- Ask your foreman about your company's written plan for silica.
Bottom line: Damage from silica builds up over years. Controlling dust today protects you later.
Talk it over
- What tasks on this job will make dust this week?
- Is our water or vacuum setup working right?
- How should we clean up dust in our area?
Before you wrap up: have everyone sign the sign-in sheet, write today's date and the topic, and note any questions or hazards the crew brought up. Need a sheet? Use the free toolbox talk template.
Next talk: Safe Lifting →