Do modern dust reduction approaches ensure wood dust emissions at workplaces in Germany to be kept safely below the applying limit value

An atmospheric limit value of 2 mg/m(3) applies to wood dust occurring at w orkplaces in the Federal Republic of Germany. For a couple of workplaces re ferred to in a so-called list of negatively classified workplaces, this lim it value is considered unachievable. For them a limit value of 5 mg/m(3) wa s fixed. This list is presently under review by the German committee for ha zardous substances (AGS). To this end the competent German institutions con ducted and evaluated large measurement series at selected workplaces in the wood working industry. It could be shown that wood dust exposure is still likely to exceed the 2 mg/m(3)-value at a large number of workplaces using specific machinery. The results served to prepare a proposal for the AGS re lating to the further handling of these workplaces in the legal context.