CARE - A EUROPEAN PROGRAM FOR MONITORING AND REDUCING REFRACTORY CERAMIC FIBER DUST AT THE WORKPLACE - INITIAL RESULTS

The European Ceramic Fibre Industry Association (ECFIA) has undertaken an extensive industrial hygiene programme for refractory ceramic fibr es (RCF). The objectives are twofold: (i) to monitor workplace dust co ncentrations at both manufacturers' and customers' premises, and (ii) to document manufacturing and use of RCF products from an industrial h ygiene perspective in order to establish appropriate recommendations t o reduce exposures. Results pertaining to the first objective are pres ented in this paper. This programme employs a sampling and analysis pr otocol designed to produce data compatible with a similar monitoring p rogramme undertaken in the United States. Nearly 700 workplace samples (personal monitoring time weighted average (TWA) fibre concentrations ) were collected in the first year (1996 to 1997) of operation. Sample s are taken from plants operated by ECFIA members (internal samples) a nd those from their customers/end-users (external samples). The analys es presented in this paper indicate that (i) approximately 50% of meas ured TWA workplace concentrations are under 0.25 fibres/millilitre (f/ ml), 71% are under 0.5 f/ml, 84% are under 1 f/ml, and 94% are under 2 f/ml; (ii) workplace concentration data are approximately lognormally distributed; (iii) there are significant differences between average workplace concentrations at ECFIA facilities and those operated by cus tomers/end-users; (iv) workplace concentrations vary with functional j ob category (FJC); (v) significant plant-to-plant differences in avera ge workplace concentrations exist - a possible basis for developing re asonable benchmarks. These data will enable better identification of t he sources of exposure to be controlled.