The (In)famous Combustible Dust Hazard BY MARY DRAIN
ers against combustible dust hazard risks, the Fibre Box Association (FBA) Safety & Health Committee created “Guidelines for Developing a Combustible Dust Mainte- nance Program at Your Facility.” The document is specific to corrugated box plants and plant issues. The recommen- dations in it are effective and reasonably easy to imple- ment. And it offers practical guidance for a box plant main- tenance protocol. According to the 2009 Status Report on Combustible Dust NEP, almost half the citations (47 percent) were for vi- olations of Haz Com and Housekeeping. Employers have largely been cited for tolerating recognized hazards in their facilities. See the FBA Safety & Health Committee’s Combustible Dust Guidelines for dust control and management, train- ing and informing employees, and the corrugated material Safety Data Sheet (SDS). Videos of combustible dust ex- plosions can be compelling training/hazard-communica- tion tools, see USCSB’s. The Combustible Dust Guidelines document is free to FBA members on the FBA website and it’s available to non-members at the FBA Store here. A timely article on this topic also recently appeared in EHS Today. Following the Committee’s Guidelines and developing a maintenance program for combustible dust can keep your employees, building and equipment safe. Let’s leave the ignition of combustible dust where it belongs - in the game.
Combustible dust is having its fifteen minutes of pop-cul- ture fame. Last month, the science behind combustible
dust became more mainstream with the release of the “Bust the Dust” add-on kit for the popular simulation game The Sims 4. The download- able content challenges players to combat ever-growing dust piles and dust bunny creatures in Sims’ dwell- ings with vacuums. Letting the dust
Mary Drain
settle too long in the game, can cause the combustible dust to ignite. While not realistic, the game does bring up a topic worth a redux in our industry: combustible dust. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program (NEP) was effective in 2008 and reissued in 2015. And while there isn’t a standard that addresses combustible dust, OSHA has the authority to inspect facilities with pos- sible combustible dust hazards. They cite violations based on the existing OSHA standards, using industry consensus standards such as the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Combustible Dust standards as references. To help prepare corrugated packaging manufactur-
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May 3, 2021
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