Regulation on processing crystalline silica substances

For the purposes of section 529CD(4) of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011, training is training approved by the regulator if the training addresses all of the following matters:

1. The health risks associated with exposure to RCS, including the signs and symptoms of silicosis – supporting information can be found at:
   • section 1.2 of the Managing respirable crystalline silica dust exposure in construction and manufacturing of construction elements Code of Practice 2022 (silica in construction code).
2. How to determine if a material contains crystalline silica, including:
1. Explanation of the forms of crystalline silica listed in section 529A(3) of the WHS Regulation.
2. Explanation of common materials and products known to contain crystalline silica – supporting information can be found at:
   • section 5.1 of the silica in construction code; and
   • section 2.1 of the Safe Work Australia Working with crystalline silica substances: Guidance for PCBUs (the CSS guide).
3. How to interpret safety data sheets (SDS) and manufacturers information.
3. The meaning of ‘processing’ in relation to CSS (as defined by section 529A of the WHS Regulation).
4. How RCS is generated during processing, how workers can be exposed and the relevant workplace exposure standards for the forms of RCS – supporting information can be found at:
   • section 1.1 of the silica in construction code;
   • section 1.2 of the CSS guide, and
   • the Safe Work Australia workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants.
5. When processing of CSS is considered to be ‘controlled’ under section 529B of the WHS Regulation.
6. The requirements for the controls listed in subsection 529B(1)(b) of the WHS Regulation, how they work and how to use them – supporting information can be found at:
   • section 7 of the silica in construction code; and
   • section 4.4 of the CSS guide.
7. The types of respiratory protective equipment (RPE) (i.e. face piece and filter combinations) specified by AS/NZS 1715:2009 (Selection, use and maintenance of respiratory protective equipment) as being suitable to protect against exposure to RCS – supporting information can be found at:
   • section 7.6 of the silica in construction code; and
   • appendix F of the CSS guide.
8. How to determine if the RPE is compliant with the required standard (AS/NZS 1716:2012 Respiratory protective devices).
9. Fit-checking, fit-testing and facial-hair requirements for tight-fitting RPE in compliance with AS/NZS 1715:2009 (Selection, use and maintenance of respiratory protective equipment) – supporting information can be found at:
   • section 7.6 of the silica in construction code;
   • section 5.5 of the Managing respirable dust hazards in coalfired power stations Code of Practice 2023 (the coalfired dust code); and
   • appendix F of the CSS guide.
10. General housekeeping and cleaning methods which eliminate or minimise risk of exposure to RCS for CSS process/es – supporting information can be found at:
    • section 8 of the silica in construction code.
11. WHS Regulation requirements for:
    1. Silica risk control plans (or safe work method statements (SWMS) for construction work) under section 529CB of the WHS Regulation when undertaking processing which is high risk – supporting information can be found at:
       • appendix G of the CSS guide.
    2. Compliance with a silica risk control plan under section 529CC of the WHS Regulation or, for SWMS, section 300 of the WHS Regulation.
    3. Compliance with section 529CE including:
       1. Determining when air monitoring may be required under section 50 of the WHS Regulation – supporting information can be found at:
          • section 9 of the silica in construction code;
          • section 5.5 of the CSS guide; and
          • section 4 of the coalfired dust code.
       2. Providing the regulator with results of any air monitoring undertaken which shows the airborne concentration of RCS has exceeded the workplace exposure standard for crystalline silica – supporting information can be found at:
          • section 5.5 of the CSS guide.
       3. Determining when health monitoring may be required under part 7.1 division 6 of the WHS Regulation – supporting information can be found at:
          • section 10.1 of the silica in construction code;
          • section 7 of the coalfired dust code; and
          • the Safe Work Australia Health monitoring for persons conducting a business or undertaking guide.

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Good morning, everybody. For those of you who don't know me, my name's Noel Pinkerton. I'm a principal advisor with the Occupational Hygiene Health and Asbestos Unit within Workplace Health and Safety. My background is I've been with the department for about 15 years now. Being a construction and industrial inspector, plus a couple of other positions. I'm also a certified occupational hygienist, and silica has been my, one of my pet areas for the last, probably five or six years now. So, as we know we've got the second tranche of RCS changes or regulation changes that happened over the weekend. And so that's what we're here to discuss this, this morning. So in terms of the traditional owners, our event is being held on the traditional lands of the turbo people and the Jaguar people, and I wish to acknowledge them as the traditional owners. I would also like to pay our respects to the elders past and present and the elders from other communities who may be here today.

So today, as I said, talking about the RCS and the changes of changes in the regulations and what that means in the practical sense and how to, how to comply with it. So talking about silica control, processing, how to assess the risk and determining whether it is a high risk or not. A bit of air monitoring and health monitoring, and a couple of case studies that we have. So, silica, silica, there's two main types of silica. It's one of these things that unfortunately we can't get away with. Silica is one of the most common compounds on the earth's crust. It is everywhere we dig something up, it'll probably have something contained in silica with it or around it. There's two main types of silica, the crystalline silica and the amorphous silica. Crystalline silica is the one that we focus on mainly because of the the, the structure of it.

The atoms or the molecules as they are the amorphous silica. It doesn't have a regular shape. It has a random shape, which is what, what it's called amorphous. And it's because of that, that it still has health risks, so you definitely don't want to go breathing it in. But because of the structure of it at the molecular level, it, it poses less of a risk to the he to a person's health. The crystalline silica, it has a regular repeated rigid structure, and that's why it does have the, the ramifications for health risks as well. So as you can see there on the, on the images, the crystalline, so it is repeated, it is regular, it is there, and it actually can be quite, it has at the molecular level can be quite sharp and jagged and cause some damage to cells.

It has the same, same chemical formula, both types. So it's the same molecular chemical formula, but it's the structure that's the difference. So, as I said, what we're looking at is the crystalline side of things, but if you've got something like an amorphous product like glass, there's definitely still the requirement to manage the risk for dust. 'cause You don't wanna be breathing any dust in if you don't have to. So just a couple of definitions, this crystalline silica side of things. We've got four polymorphs of silica, the quartz, the crystalite, the mite, and the tripoli. They're all subspecies of crystalline silica. But when you're looking at each of 'em that you group 'em together as crystalline silica, the differences are through the, through the formation of rock or also the process inside of things. You can actually create the different species from one to another.

But that's really getting a bit technical in terms of the heat, the pressure and all that sort of, all that sort of stuff. But when you're looking at any of them, you can get reports that will have different types of it, but we're all looking at it as a crystalline silica. As crystalline silica. Now, a crystalline silica substance, this is one of the new terms that we have in the regulations. It is a product that contains at least 1% crystalline silica by weight. So that's the definition that is in the regulations. It's not, it's a new definition in the regulations, but it's not actually a new definitions in terms of what we've been working with. We've had it in the code for the construction code for the last 18 months. But also we've had the, that definition in the occupational hygiene world when we're talking about crystalline silica dust for donkeys years.

So anything over that 1% content of crystalline silica has always been determined as crystalline silica dust. Then we're looking at the respirable side of things. Respirable crystalline silica is the dust that is less than 10 micrometers in diameter. This is one of the things that size does matter when it comes to the dust side of things. The smaller it is, the more penetration you get into the lungs. It's just the way that the body but the body's designed and that it work, that that's how the dust penetrates into the lungs. As you can see there. What we're looking at is you've got fine beach sand there, that's about 90 micrometers. That is crystalline silica itself, but is that hazardous to health? It's not as hazardous as the respirable stuff. And the reason we know that is people go to the beach all the time.

They've, you've got people who have beachside living and they are not developing silicosis from those exposures. Okay? It's just a way that the it's too big to get deep into your lungs. What you've got there is a human hair. You've got the blue side, blue size particles, which is the inhalable size, and the red, which is the respirable size. So in reality, those red size particles, the respirable side of things, they're invisible to the naked eye. You can't see them. What you can see is sometimes when you've got a beam of light, if you got a sun beam beam of sunlight coming through a window or a projector shooting up, you can see things floating in the air. That's the respirable stuff. So with a bit of assistance, you can see them, but in reality, it's naked, it's invisible to the naked eye. And that's the side problem with this thing. Peop sometimes people get to the point where they go, oh, there's no dust here 'cause you can't see it. But there's actually dust here because the, it's the respirable side of things. So as I mentioned, the definition for crystalline silica is actually built into the regulations. The new regulations are in the, have the number 5, 2 9 with a letter after it. That's just the way that there are. So 5 2, 9 A is the definition of crystalline silica, and as I said, it includes those polymorphs, and that's the way it's written out in the legislation.

Now, in terms of more definitions, processing, processing is what we're actually worried about when it comes to the crystalline silica substances. If you have a crystalline silica substance sitting there, and nothing's happening to it, realistically, there's no dust being produced. So it's not an issue. It's when you'd start the processing on it. Now, the definition of processing has a whole range of definitions that is, is included there, but it's not an exhaustive list. In essence, what you're looking at is when you're doing some high energy process on a crystalline silica substance, it in reality, when you've got some mechanical or thermal process that you're doing, that you change in the state of the, the material. So as you can see there, you've got power tools, road headers, quarrying and it's the products that you don't think about sometimes that are the ones that will catch you out. So we've got a case study later on about a dentist. So in terms of this, this, these regulations, they're not specific to any industry. Previously we've had the managing the exposure of respirable, crystalline silica and construction and manufacturing of construction elements, code of practice, which was specific to the construction industry and the manufacturing of construction elements. If it didn't fall within that scope, it wasn't applicable for that code. This legislation applies to every industry.

Now, as I said, respirable dust, what's the issue with it? It gets right down deep into your lungs. You've got a picture on the right there of a human facial hair. What you can see there is the white spattering on it, a crystalline respirable, crystalline silica particles that that facial hair was actually taken from somebody who was wearing a respirator with some stubble. And that facial, that hair was inside the respirator. So when we're looking at controls, we need to make sure that they're effective, because that was at what was on that facial here. You can only imagine what else got into their, that person's lungs for that short time. Now, that was a controlled experiment, but that's just the reality of it. If you don't have effective controls, people are breathing this stuff in. Now, as I said, in terms of the types of dust you've got the inhalable, which really is the stuff that gets up into your nose and throat, if you've ever been camping, if you've ever been gardening and the likes of that, and you spend the next two days blowing your nose and you've got all different types of mucus coming out.

When you blow your nose, that's the inhalable dust being trapped up in the body, up in the upper respiratory system. That's just the way the body works. Then you've got the thoracic lungs, which oh, thoracic dust, which in reality is probably a line from your armpits up. That's where that get caught, and the body can get rid of it through the mucus ciliary ladder. And again, you either sneeze, spit it out, or generally what will happen is you bring it up, swallow it, and it gets excreted through the body that way. The respirable dust is the finest stuff, and it reaches the aveoli in the lungs. And when that happens, it causes scarring through a process where the cells in there can't actually get rid of it. And the problem with RCS is RCS is actually toxic to those cells. So those cells are doing their darnedest, but in reality, they're, they were set up to fail from the get go because the particularly fresh cut RCS is toxic to those cells.

So they body can't function the way it does. It does attempt to, but it just gets overloaded with the, the amount of d dust particles in there. And that leads us onto silicosis. The main, main health issue that we find from sil respirable, crystalline silica is silicosis. It's not a new disease. It's not something that we've thought up in the last few years. It's something that has been around for millennia. The ancient Greeks, ancient Romans, they knew that their slaves in the quarries were lazy and died early. They just didn't have a name for the disease that they had the exposures probably, well, I would hope to say that is a lot less nowadays, but the process is still the same. They just didn't have a disease, the name for the disease back in the day. And in essence, what it does is over time, you suffocate yourself just because the lung oxygen can't get through the, through the lungs into the bloodstream.

And that what you see there, lungs are meant to be like, it's like a wet, it is like a wet sponge. If you've actually handled a lung, it's completely different to what you think it should be. It should, it's effectively like a wet sponge that absorbs the oxygen and the nutrients to go through that. There is a person who's experienced a lot of dust exposure, and you can see it becomes rigid, it becomes brittle, and quite frankly, it just can't move. So that's, that's the main disease that we've, we know abouts respirable, crystalline silica. And that's the reality for a lot of people. The latest stats are, we think there are about 600 people a year dying from silicosis at 600 people that we do not need to have died from a disease that is entirely preventable. Now, you've also got different types and other lung, lung diseases such as COPD bronchitis and lung cancer. But silicosis is a specific disease that is related to respirable, crystalline ciliary exposure.

Now we've, now we've spoken about all the doom and gloom. What do we need to do to prevent it? The regulations say a crystalline, a process done on a crystalline silica substance needs to be controlled. What does that mean in layman's terms? Effectively, you need to have an effective, is the key word, effective engineering control. That can be isolation, that can be a enclosed cab, that can be water suppression, that can be local exhaust ventilation, that can be on tool extraction or a combination of the lot. But you need to have an effective control, engineering control in place. Now, the reality is those controls are not 100% effective, but the more you put in place, the more effective it is in reality. What we want to see is it's been desi, it's working as it has been designed by the manufacturer, the manufacturers of on tool extraction, water suppression systems. They've spent a heck of a lot of money to actually develop these systems. It's not just something they thought up in the backyard overnight, over a barbecue and a couple of drinks. They've spent a lot of money employing engineers to design these, these processes. So the effectiveness of it is dev is, has been developed, and it needs to be used as per developed, and that includes a lot of maintenance.

Now, as I said, these, these engineering controls are not 100% effective. So anybody's still at risk. You need to provide them with respiratory protection, and they need to be wearing it as, as they've been instructed while that work is being carried out. Now, the other thing is that part C, there, it doesn't just talk about the person doing the work.

Is people who could be at risk. There's been too many times that I've seen the trades person doing some work and the laborer coming in and out or standing just off to the side with no protection at all. So it's anybody who is at risk, anybody within that work area that could be at risk needs to be wear and respiratory protection while that work is being carried out, not just the operator. So in reality, this is what it looks like. Water suppression. You've got like on tool extraction, you've got big yellow plant or other types of plant with an enclosed cabin. Now, there is an Australia, there is an ISO standard, which has been adopted as an Australian standard there I think it's 2385, that outlines what is required for a enclosed cabin. Effectively, it needs to be positive pressure maintained and make sure that it is effective to control the dust. What that standard does include, and I think it's quite sad that it's had to include that, is that the doors and windows are shut and that the seals are in good condition. Unfortunately, that that standard has had to be written to that degree because people will have des designed these beautiful positive pressure cabins and the ACS not working. So what do you do? You leave the window open to get some fresh air in.

That's like wearing your, your respirate on the top of your head, absolutely useless. So there's a, an entire standard around that. And then, then we look at the respiratory protection side of things. So it's a systemic process that we're looking at. Got the engineering controls, and then if you need it, you've got the respiratory protection there, and that is done as per manufacturer specifications. So in terms of assessing the risk, how do you determine if it is high risk? Well, that's up to the business to determine. You have to go through that process effectively what it says is every process is high risk until you prove otherwise. What do you need to take into consideration? Well, we'll go through that in a second, but once it's assessed as high risk, you need to make sure that you develop a silica risk control plan. You need to provide training to the workers and those around who are affected by the task. You need to undertake air monitoring as per regulation 50. And I'll explain that in a little bit. And same with health monitoring as per the health monitoring requirements. Now, if you determine that it's not high risk,

You still need to control it just because it's not determined as high risk, you still need to have those controls in place, the engineering control, to make sure that it doesn't become high risk. The other thing is this training that we're gonna talk about in a second, it does, it's specific to crystalline silica. That doesn't remove the requirement for the general information training and supervision requirements under the regulations. So it's not a case that you go, oh, well, it's not high risk. I don't need to tell my workers anything. You still need to make sure they understand the risks and the process that they're needing to needing to follow. And one thing that I find is forgotten about is maintain and review those controls. It might sound simple, but I guarantee you everybody sitting in this room today, if you are working with a, doing a crystalline silica process, the controls you have today will be completely different to what you had three years ago because the technology has changed. So you need to continually maintain and review those. Can we do it better? So in terms of assessing the risk, effectively what you need to be doing is

A look at what the process is. What's the specific process that you're doing? What type or forms of crystalline silica do you have present? What's the proportion? Do you know that? Do you have an idea how much crystalline silica is in that project? Is it 2%? Is it 98%? Does it vary a lot of products or a lot of things? You can vary from spot to spot, particularly in civil work. So you need to do, have a good idea of what you're doing there, the hazards. So how often is somebody gonna be doing that work and how, for how long? If you're doing it once a week for a couple of minutes, it's completely different to somebody standing on a tool eight hours a day, five days a week, completely different risk profile. You need to make an assessment of the airborne concentration of RCS at the workplace for that task. Now that's where we're getting into reg reg regulation 50. For the air monitoring, you need to be able to deter, do an assessment. Doesn't that mean you have to do air monitoring? There are other resources that can give you an indication as to, okay, we're doing this task this often or for this long per day, we're gonna be in this sort of a control band.

But what we, what you do have to do is to make sure that you understand that that control and have a good justifiable, reasonable ex explanation as to why you have assessed it as above or below half the exposure standard have is the health monitor. Has there been health monitoring done in the past? That will give you an indication of past exposures. If you've got a, a health monitoring issue or somebody who's got early diagnosis, I really, really hope that you would go out and review those controls straight away. And then any other illnesses or conditions, diseases that ex are assessed associated with the RCS exposure, they're the factors that you gotta take into account. Then you come up with a out, an as an assessment result. As I said, if you're unable to determine you're uming an R and you're not sure, you don't quite have every piece of the puzzle there. It's high risk. So if you're unable to determine whether it is or is not, more importantly whether it is not high risk, then it is determined high risk as per the regulations. And then you have to go through that process,

Which is the same as if you do determine it is a high risk. If you determine that it is not high risk, you still have to control the process and meet all your requirements as per the training and general duties. So just because, as I said, if just because it's not high risk doesn't mean you don't have to do anything. You still have to make sure that work are safe As so far as reasonably practical, when you do get it for high risk, you have to deter, you develop a high risk, a silica risk control plan that needs to be developed in consultation with your workers. This needs to be done before the workers do that work. Now hopefully everybody talks to their workers because a lot of the time the best source of control comes from the workers. They have some great ideas because they talk to people. They, they've tried different ways of doing things to make sure, to get things more effective because it's easier for them to do the job when things are working well, as I said, you need to provide that silica risk control plan to workers before they start the con processing of a crystalline silica substance. Need to make it available to all workers

And, and make sure that what's in the plan is actually being done. There's been too many times that the plan is written stuck under the photocopy to keep it level, and that's where it sits. You need to make sure that it remains current and it's being followed. This is similar to a safe work method statement and highlight that because the, the government is serious about this and there are in penalties that can be imposed upon businesses that do not follow these regulations. So in terms of following that plan, make sure you're doing it for crying out loud.

Now, in terms of construction work, a lot of the, a lot of processes on crystalline silica substances, they occur in construction work. I'm not gonna lie. Do you need to develop another plan? No. Provided that you say work method statement covers what is required to be in that plan. So you don't need a silica risk control plan and a safe work method statement that has exactly the same information on it, just a different head up, up the top. That's just duplication, that's just silly. That's not working effectively. But you need to make sure that all the information that is required in that silica risk control plan is in your work method statement. So air monitoring. So it does say you need to undertake air monitoring as per regulation 50. It does not say you must undertake air monitoring regulation 50 says you need to undertake air monitoring if you are unsure, uncertain on reasonable grounds, whether or not the airborne concentration of RCS at the workplace exceeds the workplace exposure standard or monitoring is necessary to determine whether there is a risk to health from RCS. So what does that mean in practicality, if you have no idea what your levels are,

The reality is you'll need to do some homework. You need to find a way to justify whether you do or do not need to do air monitoring. There are a lot of resources available for that information to be obtained nationally within Australia and internationally.

What we are looking for is to make sure that that data, that information is relevant to the tasks you are doing. If you have a manufacturer that has done their testing overseas and it's out in the middle of nowhere, it's blowing a gale and they're doing it for five minutes only, and they've come back with a certain level and you are doing it in a basement somewhere where there's no ventilation and the person's on the tool for six hours, that's not apples and apples you need. That's not a justifiable argument. You need to make sure that the variables or the circumstances are as close to what you have as possible.

As I said, within Queensland, we do have resources that identify controls and whether respiratory protection is needed. That's a good starting point. You can get statistically valid data from an occupational hygienist. You can get it from tool manufacturers. They're good starting points provided that your situation is comparable or I'll say better variables in your, in your circumstances. When I say that, if they've done their testing in an enclosed room and they do it for eight hours a day and you've got local exhaust ventilation natural ventilation, dilu dilute in the concentration and you're doing it for half an hour a day, then our, it's a good, it's a good argument that you can use that data and say, we're gonna be under that. So that's what you need to make sure you do air monitoring. Also, if you do do air monitoring, there is a requirement to report exceedances to the regulator. There is a form online for that. It's nothing too different to what has been there for previous codes of practice and regulations. Certain industries, like the coal fire powered stations have that requirement already. It's just built into the regulations. Now that anybody doing air monitoring, if you have an exceedance of your exposure standard, you need to report it to us. What do what we do with that information is we'll do an assessment and determine what the best way forward for that is.

Is it a case that it's an automatic slap on the wrist? No. We want to make sure that you you're aware of it and you're doing something to prevent higher exposure in the future. Okay? In terms of your records, again, not new, must be retained for 30 years and be available for your workers who are, who are, who are exposed to RCS or doing those RRC s processing. Okay? So you need to have a system, a storage method to make sure that you can keep that for 30 years training, specific training to RCS. Now, there's gonna be, there's two aspects to this or two types of this training. There are vet courses out there currently that are nationally accredited. You can put, get your workers to do that. There is also an option for the training to be approved by the regulator. What we are doing currently is we are not going through every single training course on RCS to approve or not approve. What we're going to be doing is looking through a process to make sure that that training meets a certain standard. And as long as that training meets that certain standard, then it will be approved by the regulator.

What you do need to do also is you need to provide that worker training before they do that task. You need to keep those records for five years after the worker has ceased working for you. So you need to make sure you have a system in place to keep those records. 'cause If someone comes knocking on your door in four months, four years and 11 months asking for those records, it could result in a penalty for you. So you need to make sure you keep those records for five years after they've finished working. Not when they start working, not when they've done that training after they've finished working for you. I cannot highlight that enough and make sure they're available for inspection. So if you get an inspector on site, they may be asking for those records of, they may ask for certain workers, they may ask for your records. They ma may ask for how you are keeping those records. Again, make sure you're doing that because there are potential penalties for that. It might seem like a administrative thing, but it is a requirement under the legislation. I cannot emphasize that enough.

The record of the the records can be kept in the silica control plan or it can be kept in your training records. How you do that is up to you, but you need to make sure they're available. Now, if it, again, if it's not high risk, you still need to train your workers on the risks of crystalline silica. But it doesn't fall under that requirement because it's not high risk work or high risk work. Under the CSS regulations, health monitoring, not a new requirement, needs to be done when there's a significant risk to workers' health from ongoing work from RCS and whilst undertaken processing of a high risk task, high risk CSS task, that is high risk. Generally speaking, if it's high risk, it, it's gonna present significant risk to the worker's health. That's how it loops back around. So it's not a requirement under these new regulations that you do health monitoring. It's the requirement that there is significant risk, significant high risk. You can use those words, you could use interchangeably to make that connection to the air monitoring, the health monitoring side of things. And again, not just the operators. If you've got people in the vicinity of that area and they're at high risk, they're doing high risk work and they're at significant risk, then they're gonna need health monitoring as well. So this is not just focusing on the operators, it's focusing on workers in general.

The key thing here is it's up to the business. It's up to the PCBU to determine significant risk. You need to have a justifiable reason, whether you do or do not. More to the point whether you do not do health monitoring for workers. This table's on our website, it really explains whether or not health monitoring should be done or not. So if you've got a exposure level that is well below the level of harm, well below the exposure level and you control known controls are in place, then you don't need to do health monitoring. Exposure is at a level that could harm health and you've got known control, known controls in place. Then health monitoring is not requirement if you don't have all the known controls in place. Health monitoring is more than likely required. So that that table there is on our website at the moment. To give you a bit of a bit of a understanding of where where where we sit, I would, yeah, I'll leave that. Health monitoring records again, need to make sure you have a system in place to keep the records needs to be kept for 30 years.

The reason for this is for why the records need to be kept for so long is that silicosis takes a while to become symptomatic and become, well, not just symptomatic, but be able to detect it by health monitoring. You can be asymptomatic so you don't have any symptoms, but have early stage silicosis and that's caught or picked up by their health monitoring. Some people that can take 15, 20 years, unfortunately recently we've had a few people doing that in a couple of years, which is definitely something we don't want, but we don't want people obtain contracting this disease full stop. So you need to make sure you keep those health monitoring records for 30 years. You also need to make sure you give the, give the workers a copy of those records. What they do with their those records is up to them. But you need to provide that to them. Now, health monitoring, you need to provide us the health monitoring report. If there's the doctor indicates that the person they believe has contracted a disease or they recommend a change in controls or process for that person, it might be a simple case

That the doctor says there's something, something a bit fishy going on here. I want that person to do other tasks. They can't do this, this, this, and this for a period of time while I do some more tests on that person. You need to let us know about that. That's in the regulations already under the health monitoring. Okay? So that's also the requirement, just like the air monitoring. If there's adverse health effects or a disease that is being detected or the doctor suspects there's a disease, you need to let us know about that. Now that's a whole heap of information to go through. Now in terms of a couple of case studies, what we're looking at is we've got an electrical business doing a few PowerPoints each week and it talks about 10 10 there over the course of a week. Five minutes each time drilling into into tiles. No doubt there would be a substrate on the back, but we mainly concentrating on the tiles because that will be the item that will be where the dust will be produced while it's cut in.

They've done their homework. It's about 30% crystalline silica in the product. Now also part of their homework, they've gone, okay, we're gonna be drilling, we're gonna put a engineering control on the drill. That's fairly common place nowadays, isn't it? They've got a HEPA system on the drill. So looking at that, they've done the process of, okay, five times or five minutes per task, 10 minutes per 10 times per week, 50 minutes in the week, 50 minutes over 40 hours. That's not quite one 40th of a work week. We've got a good engineering control in place. We are fairly confident that the exposure standard is gonna be below half the, or the exposure level is gonna be below half the exposure standard. It's not high risk. And they've documented that process as to how they've landed at that conclusion. Okay, fair enough. It's not high risk, but they've still gotta make sure they've got the con it's controlled, which they've done need to make sure their workers are trained. They've got the general training duties and information information and supervision. So they've done that assessment. It's not high risk. That's where they stop in terms of these regulations still gotta control because that comes before the assessment. But they've still, still gotta manage the dust and make sure that the people are competent of doing it. Okay? So that's just an example of where it's not high risk. Now, as I said, these regulations do not just apply to the traditional industries of construction and associated tasks.

Denture clinic, that's their bread and butter. That is what they do. This person does this most of the day, every day of the week. Now most of the time we're looking at exposure from crystalline silica for, you know, hand tools a dentist used hand tools as well. They're just on a much smaller scale. So what this person is doing is they're working with porcelain, it contains crystalline silica. They're having to do this intricate work all day every day. It will be done most of the time in some sort of with some sort of local exhaust ventilation, mini booth type thing. But it's still all day, every day for eight hours. Porcelain, I won't say a high, but definitely over 1% crystalline silica. So that assessment they've done, okay, it is high risk. So then they have to go through that process of developing that silical risk control plan in consultation with the workers, putting that, those controls in place, getting that training for those workers or associated workers. 'cause It's not just the person who's doing the work. It could be the, the lab assistants, the technicians, those sort of people who are coming in and out for periodic training or periodical time ins.

And then make sure that, okay, it's high risk we need to do, do we need to do air monitoring? Well, we do that in accordance with regulation 50, but because it's high risk, they've made the determination, we're doing do some health monitoring on these pe on this worker and anybody associated with it as well. So that is the process that we're what we are expecting people to do. So as I said this, I know we're probably preaching to most of the converted in the room here, have been working with it for a while, but these regulations are just not the traditional industries. It covers every industry that does work within Queensland for our regulations, but these are national regulations. Okay? So in terms of that, just highlights that you need to be careful for the tasks that you're probably not used to seeing captured by the, the code or previous regulations that do now fall under these current regulations. Alright, thank you. Are there any questions? I think there is a R mic, so if you have one, stick your hand up and I'll and wait till

Yeah, once to start with good presentation. Thank you. If we have a high risk activity already known before the 1st of September, do we have to re report that to the regulations now?

Thanks. Thanks for the president mate. Really good. One thing I had a question about, which is as a principal the requirement to forecast the 12 months worth of work and report to the regulator,

You talking about engineered stone legacy work? Yep.

Which I'm guessing is ven essentially the same thing, right?

Well this is, so without going too technical, there's two tranches. It's been called. So two stages. Engineered stone was the first one, the crystalline silica is the second one, but, yep. So

I guess to make sure my question is aimed at the right place then can I ask you a question about that? Yeah, because I feel like it's the sa essentially the same, right? It's it's just a really high level of silica, but it's still work with a silica product. So comes under this.

Okay, cool. So as a principle requiring the forecast the amount of work over the coming 12 months, my question is the purpose of that reporting what happens to that information and in a scenario where the reporting is required, if you are A-P-C-B-U directing or allowing the work to be taking place, is there a risk and does it matter if there's a risk of it being reported multiple times for the same work? So if I'm the principal and we know that we have a trade coming in to remove a stone bench top or process it in some way, we are having to not identify the jobs over the next 12 months where that could happen. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> and that could be 20 jobs, 10 jobs, 30. The trade that we employ also as a contractor has to report on that same stuff, plus the broader suite of whatever they're doing. And then the worker, if it's a sole trader for example, coming in and doing it, are they also reporting? So it's kind of being reported three times. So I just understand the purpose of that.

So for this set of regulations, there's no reporting of tasks to the regulator. So the engineered stone legacy work is a requirement to be notified to the regulator by the PCBU doing the work. So it's on the business that will be doing that work to forecast and if there are significant changes, put a new notification in that last for 12 months. So for crystal, so engineered stone is a crystalline silica substance, but only the engineered stone aspect requires legacy stone notifications. So for, for tasks that are currently what you would P-A-P-C-B would determine high risk. We don't need notification of every single task because quite frankly, we're gonna get, we're gonna block up every server in, in the state from that side of things. So the only notifications we require from this new or this set of regulations is if you've got an exceedance from air monitoring or a health monitoring aspect, which is already already there. So in terms of the high risk work or high risk tasks or high risk processing that require the silica risk control plan for this, we do not need notification for that. So it's only the engineered stone legacy work that does that. So it's so effectively, if you're working on engineered stone legacy work, minor repair disposal, notify us everything else we don't need to know.

Okay, thanks mate. And just on the silica control plan I noted in the, it looks like that from the presentations done in New South Wales a week or so ago, it looks like you mentioned it briefly, if your swims meets the requirements, then it's okay, you don't need both, right? Yep. Okay, great. Just a question about it seems like when Part C talks about where a person is still at risk, it kind of feels like what they're really saying is you're gonna assume that anyone is anyway because your controls aren't, as you said, aren't always a hundred percent effective. So you always gonna need those extra, you know, the respira respirator and you're gonna need to make sure, you know, you've got everything regardless of whether it's essentially a high risk, deemed high risk or not, because you're still generating respirable silica dust in some quantity. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. So you would say anyway, like that process flows seems bit pretty much like just, you don't really need to <laugh> say, oh, well I've said it's high risk or not because you're still adopting all the controls anyway, right?

Effectively what we would be looking for there is, you know, best practice is always as, as low as reasonably practicable. So mate put as many controls in place as possible. What effectively that provision is talking about is, if you can effectively, if you can justify that there is no requirement for RPE and that would be requirements, you know, you could, you've got data to show one way or another, whether it's your data or from another source, but it's valid data, then you could justify that you don't need RPE, but you again, you would need that need to form that form that show us how you have formed that form that belief or come to that conclusion through that process of assessing the risk. So I mean, so when it comes to dust, there's dust in this room that is, is there, yes, no system is gonna be a, a a hundred percent effective 'cause this HVAC system has been set up to manage the air in here, but not everything gets filtered out.

That's just reality. And the good thing is the human body can cope with a certain amount. When we're talking about the RCS side of things, yes, no, no process is 100% effective, but you can get levels that are undetectable by air monitoring or at such a low level because you're doing it for such a, a short time or something like that, that you can say the risk is, the risk is low. So what we're effectively looking at is you would have the high hierarchy of control in place and then you could say, okay, well these are our levels, this is what our risk is. We're just, we're saying we don't need to put, get the workers to wear rp. A bits are similar to what is currently in the code. There are certain controls for certain tasks and for a, if you're doing the work for a certain timeframe, that's when the code says that RP is not required because those levels are at that lower end of the side of things. So effectively what that provision is saying, put your engineering controls in place and until you can justify that RP is not needed, wear rp.

Thanks for that. And sorry, I've got, I've got two more questions, sorry everyone on training. So regarding the training, again as a principal engaging contractors to do the works, so we train our guys in-house on silica risks based on the code. You said that we could provide to the regulator the training and they will tell us if that is suitable. Did I hear that right?

No. So what we're doing currently is instead of assessing every training course there is the vet courses that automatically accepted under this, under the regs. What we're doing is we're going through a process of saying this, what this is what's gonna be needed to be done in the training. And then if it fulfills all those requirements, then it is approved by the regulator.

And so you guys are gonna be providing that? Yes. Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. That's great. And as the principal engaging trades subcontractors, how far does our duty extend to ensure that they have then trained their workers to that standard?

Ultimately the, the requirement does fall back on the PCB doing the work. However, in saying that, I guess you've got the PC requirements under, and I can't remember what part of legislation is to make sure that arrangements are in place to make sure that certain things are done. And that's where it would come down to for principal contractor to have those arrangements in place to say this is what we require, who does what and have that, have that arrangement in place to make sure that it is done. It's just not a, just not a one way process that hey, this is what we require. You need to make, do your checks and balances to say, okay, they're doing what we require of them and to make sure that it's on a continual review process.

Yeah, great. Thanks for confirming that. Cheers. mine was also on the training. So that can be provided in house as long as it aligns with the, the vet training you're talking about

Provided it falls under the category of approved by the regulator.

Yes. Yep. And that can be done in house with their own people. Yeah. Cool. And the other thing is there, is there any requirements for permits in relation to working with silica permits, permits,

Licenses? None from us.

No. Cool. That's it.

I think that was one up the bat.

He's in front. Yeah. Hello. I was thinking what about say the brickie or the landscaper who's there with a bag of sand at what level would they have to be doing their risk assessments or their training and understanding of the PPE required when you know they're going about just Yep. That sort of activity?

So in terms of risk assessment, I mean generally speaking a risk risk assessment needs to be done for every task. Does it need to be written? No. Is that best practice? Yes. You also need to be looking at the product that you are working with in terms of, you know, your lay bricky or your landscaper. Are they getting sand that is screened and sometimes you can get sand that is screened that does not contain respirable particles or washed or et cetera. And if that's the case, then if you're not breaking it up, you're not using it in as molds or anything like that, then you could be fairly confident that you're levels of respirable crystalline silica. Well it may be less than 1%, otherwise it's relatively low. Do you still need to control that because you've got dust? Absolutely. So that's where the pro I guess looking at the risk assessment, you need to understand what your material is and what percentage of crystalline silica is there.

But also what's becoming airborne as respirable crystalline silica. If you are, if you're not doing a mechanical or thermal process on it and it's not, and you've got a, yeah, you've got a whole heap of crystalline silica there, but you're not generating RCS, then your process is probably not fitting under this requirement. I guess it's no different to, if you're looking at a brickie and they're moving the bricks, they've got those, those bricks have a whole heap of crystalline silica in there, but the laborer, they're not generating any respirable, crystalline silica by just moving it as soon as they hit it with that block saw grinder, whatever, that's when the respirable as fraction becomes present. So that's where the risk assessment process will branch out de depending on the product and the task.

Yeah. Back to the training what's the realistic timeframe that we'll have authorized courses to go to?

Do you mean in terms of current one ones from the vet side of things? Yeah, or I believe they're currently out there. So there is a national, I think it's something 1800 code for crystalline silica products with a few different modules out there. So there are currently RTOs that are accredited through aqua, is it aqua through the training skills authority that are currently able to deliver that training

And, and that's gonna be fine. So if I go and do training now, I won't have to go and do it another three months.

Yep. So if you look at this, there is guidance put out by us, but Safe Work Australia actually lists that vet course code in in their guidance there. And I'm sorry I can't remember it off the top of my head, but it, it's 1800 and 1,801 maybe Course code.

Oh sorry, one more question. A couple of months ago I thought I saw, I was just scanning the exposure limits and in Victoria I saw something about recommended limit of 0.02 and is there sort of visions of the 0.05 dropping in the future at all, or

Short answer is yes. Don't quote me on the dates, but I think it's 2026, it, the Workplace Ministers last year agreed to drop in the crystalline s or RCS exposure standard to 0.25 in 2026. And that's the current trajectory as to where it is at the moment. Alright, I'm just noticing it's eight o'clock. By, feel free to grab some more food, tea, coffee Mingle. But thank you very much for coming.