Dust Exposure Guides

Resources · Resources overview

The Dust Exposure guides hub gathers our technical articles on workplace dust exposure, respirable and inhalable dust, airborne fibres, PM monitoring, particulate testing methodology and practical dust control. It is written for UK health and safety professionals, occupational hygienists, facilities managers and employers managing dust risk under COSHH.

Core dust exposure

The core dust pages set out what each airborne dust fraction means, how it is sampled, and how results are interpreted against the Workplace Exposure Limits in HSE EH40. Start here to ground any wider monitoring or control programme.

Respirable dust — the alveolar-deposition fraction with a 50% cut at 4 µm; the basis for many substance-specific WELs.
Inhalable dust — the upper-airway fraction sampled with IOM-type heads under HSE MDHS 14/4.
Airborne dust — sources, suspension behaviour and re-entrainment of settled material.
Particulate monitoring — gravimetric, optical and real-time techniques and how they fit together.

Dust types

Substance-specific guides cover the dust types most often encountered in UK workplaces, with notes on health effects, sampling fractions, EH40 WELs where relevant, and common engineering controls.

Wood dust — hardwood and softwood inhalable WELs, MDF and composite considerations.
Flour dust — bakers' asthma and respiratory sensitiser controls.
Cement dust — respirable crystalline silica and alkalinity risk.
Plaster, carbon, pharmaceutical and toner dust — task-specific assessment notes.

Fibres and fine particles

Fibre and fine-particle guides cover the populations of airborne particles that need dedicated assessment beyond a general dust measurement — including airborne fibres counted by microscopy and the PM2.5, PM10 and ultrafine fractions used in particulate mapping.

Airborne fibres — MMMF, RCF and general fibre counting under HSE MDHS 59.
Fibreglass and ceramic fibres — installation, machining and removal exposure.
PM2.5 and PM10 monitoring — mass-fraction mapping and where it complements COSHH sampling.
Ultrafine and nanoparticle exposure — number-concentration and surface-area metrics.

Controls and exposure assessment

Control and assessment guides explain how UK workplaces structure a defensible COSHH position for dust risk — from initial risk assessment through sampling strategy to engineering and procedural controls in the hierarchy of control.

Dust exposure assessment — strategy, similar exposure groups and BS EN 689.
Dust control measures — the COSHH hierarchy from elimination through to RPE.
Dust extraction systems — capture, transport, filtration, discharge and LEV TExT requirements.

Industry guidance

Industry pages translate the general dust exposure framework into sector-specific terms for the work patterns we are most often asked about.

Manufacturing dust exposure — powders, mixing, machining and bag handling.
Woodworking dust exposure — joinery, sawing, sanding, CNC and workshop housekeeping.

How to use the guides

Each guide is written as a standalone technical reference, with internal links to the related dust fractions, control measures and assessment pages. They are not a substitute for a competent occupational hygiene assessment of your specific workplace, but they set out the framework, terminology and reference methods that such an assessment will normally rely on.

If you need to discuss a specific dust exposure question or sampling programme, contact us by email at info@dustexposure.co.uk or by phone on 0800 433 7914.