Dust disease toolkit
The Take Action to Prevent Dust Disease toolkit is designed to provide mine workers and mine operators with information, advice and guidance related to managing dust.
The member organisations of the Mine Safety Advisory Council have combined resources to create this dust toolkit. The toolkit is designed to provide mine workers and mine operators with information, advice and guidance related to managing dust.
Take action to prevent dust disease
Dust - Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.
Coal and silica dust at the respirable fraction can cause pneumoconiosis (in the case of coal) or silicosis (in the case of crystalline silica). Both are debilitating and often fatal lung diseases.
Take steps to ensure your own personal safety, as well as the safety of your work mates.
Download the dust diseases posters:
- Poster 1 (PDF, 2.19 MB) featuring a quarry worker
- Poster 2 (PDF, 1.78 MB) featuring the Hon. George Souris
- Poster 3 (PDF, 2.05 MB) featuring Dr Deborah Yates
- Poster 4 (PDF, 7.75 MB) featuring Garvin Burns
Silicosis is entirely preventable
Long term exposure to dust can generate a number of significant health issues from chronic debilitation all the way through to death depending on the duration of exposure and the type of dust that workers are exposed to.
In New South Wales, no worker can be exposed to dust in excess of the exposure standards that are prescribed in legislation. A new respirable crystalline silica workplace exposure standard of 0.05mg/m3 takes effect on 1 July 2020. Mine operators and quarry managers need to be aware of the changes to the exposure standards and take proactive steps to identify how they are going to meet those new standards.
Black Lung Disease: an ongoing focus in NSW
This campaign is designed to educate workers and mine operators of the risks associated with respirable coal dust.
Videos
- Exposure monitoring video
- Health monitoring video
- Take action to prevent dust disease (15 second video)
- Take action to prevent dust disease (30 second video)
Guidance
Booklets
Pamphlets
Fact sheets
Reports
- TIP consolidated report - Respirable dust in quarry operations (PDF, 1 MB) - November 2019
- TAP consolidated report - airborne contaminants in underground metalliferous mines (PDF, 215.2 KB) - January 2018
- TAP consolidated report - Airborne contaminants - UG Metex (PDF, 215.2 KB) - July 2018
- TAP consolidated report - Airborne contaminants (surface coal) interim report (PDF, 183.37 KB) - August 2018
- Evaluation report: MSAC dust safety awareness campaign
- More reports
Safety alerts
Presentations
Global Cut the Dust Conference, Gold Coast, QLD Feb 2020
- NSW case studies (PDF, 521.11 KB) - Dr David Meredith, Head of Health Services, Coal Services
- Origins and overview of the Standing Dust Committee (PDF, 439.03 KB) - Mark Shepherd, Order Compliance and Industry Support Manager, Coal Services; Chairman, NSW Standing Dust Committee
- The cause of the scarring in your lungs may be coal mine dust, and it may be treatable... - Dr Deborah H Yates, Respiratory Physician
- Lung disease from open cut mining, limits of respirators and why primary prevention matters (PDF, 3.35 MB) - Dr Cecile Rose, MD, MPH
- Miners's Health Matters: Scheme reforms for Queensland coal mining - Kerri Melkersson and Fritz Djukic, Department of Natural Respurces, Mines and Energy, QLD
- It's not only smoking that is causing your emphysema, it's the coal dust you inhaled (PDF, 1.75 MB) - Dr Leonard Go and Dr Francis Green, Universities of Illinois, Chicago, USA and Calgary, Canada
- Silicosis: From Gauley Bridge to artificial stone (PDF, 2.03 MB) - Dr Leonard Go, MD, University of Illinois, Chicago School of Public Health
- Simple coal workers' pneumoconiosis: Not so simple (PDF, 1.85 MB) - Dr Leonard Go, MD, University of Illinois, Chicago School of Public Health
- Low dust levels from mine sampling does not replace the need for medical surveillance: The role of health screening and secondary prevention (PDF, 1.8 MB) - Hon. Prof. Robert Cohen, MD, FCCP, University of Queensland, SMI
- Dust management system failures: Lessons from Australia and the USA - Hon. Prof. Robert Cohen, MD, FCCP, University of Queensland, SMI
NSW Resources Regulator's Small mines and quarries health and safety Roadshow 2019