Wood dust – Assessing the risk of exposure in your workshop

This guide has been drawn up jointly by the OPPBTP and FCBA, at the request of the professional organisations of the secondary wood processing industry (AF, UNAMA, CAPEB, UMB-FFB, UFME, SCOP BTP and UIPC), with the support of CODIFAB. For more than 20 years, the profession has been working to support companies in reducing employee exposure to wood dust, notably through various studies, including the Propobois study.
Their work quickly focused on finding ways to help the company manager to understand the risk of exposure in his workshop independently, so that he can easily identify points for improvement and plan the actions to be implemented.

The method described in this book offers a practical way to better understand the issues specific to each company and to remedy them effectively. It is applied step by step and is supported by a new tool, the simulator, which facilitates data entry and calculations, and makes it possible to

• identify the areas of greatest risk of exposure to wood dust in your workshop;
• Determine and prioritise the actions to be taken;
• participate in the definition of similar exposure groups within the framework of the regulatory control of the occupational exposure limit value (OEL).

This guide contains the following information

• The challenges of good exposure control
• The stages of self-diagnosis
• Corrective actions after self-diagnosis
• Appendices:
  – Respiratory protective devices
  – Good practice self-assessment quiz
  – Examples of cases of application of the method