Dust-intensive manual wood working

The atmospheric limit value for wood dust has been fixed to 2 mg/m(3), meas ured as inhalable dust. Workplaces and machinery for which this limit value is unachievable due to the state of the art, are comprised in a so-called list of negatively classified workplaces, allowing for 5 mg/mg(3) as a limi t. The German Committee for Hazardous Substances (AGS) has in November 1998 decided to revise this list. The Holz-BG and several institutions of the B undeslander have carried out extensive measurement series and presented the results to the AGS. The AGS followed the results in most cases, except for some specific workplaces with manual wood working activities. The Holz-BG together with the Laboratory for Occupational Safety and Health of Hamburg has initiated a project in order to investigate the dustiness in these and in related workplaces. 28 activities have been examined in view of their du stiness and attributed to the categories of being above average (five activ ities), on average or below average in dustiness. Especially in wood workin g companies with more than ten employees the limit value could not be obser ved during these activities. Partially, even a limit of 5 mg/m3 could not b e secured.