Evaluation of occupational exposure to flour dust and additives in a milling industry Article

Abstract

This study aimed to assess an environmental risk in a workstation: the occupational exposure of workers to flour dust, and mixtures of flour dust with additives in the cereal milling industry. The purpose was to understand how exposure to flour dust, and mixtures of flour dust with additives affects the health of workers. In the facilities of the milling company where this study was carried out, there is an area where workers are particularly exposed to flour dust and mixtures of flour dust with additives involved. Therefore, one of the main objectives of this study was to evaluate if these workers were subjected to occupational health hazards during their working hours, due to the contact with suspended flour dust in their workstations, focusing special attention to this area, whenever possible. A sampling of particles suspended in the air was carried out, in order to perform a quantitative analysis. Suction pumps were used, placed on workers, who work in three different workstations, to make a quantitative comparison. An average concentration (a.c.) of 17.27 mg/m³ was obtained in the workstation of the preparation of mixtures, an a. c. of 1.35 mg/m³ and one of 2.25 mg/m³ in the bagging workstation – for plain flour and for added flour, respectively. It was found that all values obtained exceed the Exposure Limit Value proposed by the Standard NP 1796:2014, which presents a value calculated as a weighted average of 0.5 mg/m³. Mitigation with the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), FFP3 type masks, is enough to protect workers.