The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the former U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) have given a significant effort over the past four decades in researching and developing engineering controls and interventions to reduce mine workers’ dust exposures during the bagging and palletizing of industrial minerals. Workers performing manual bagging and palletizing of 50- to 100-pound bags typically have some of the highest dust exposures of all workers at mining and mineral processing operations. This paper will provide an overview of available dust control technologies for bagging operations and present the findings of a recent case study that was conducted at four different industrial sand operations to identify the current types of bagging and palletizing technologies being used and to evaluate their effectiveness in reducing workers’ exposures to respirable crystalline silica dust. An evaluation will also be performed to determine if further reductions in respirable dust levels can be achieved by incorporating additional modifications or improvements into the existing technology.

中文翻译：

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评估装袋操作中的工程控制，以减少可吸入结晶二氧化硅粉尘的暴露

美国国家职业安全与健康研究所 (NIOSH) 和前美国矿业局 (USBM) 在过去的四年中付出了巨大的努力来研究和开发工程控制和干预措施，以减少矿工在装袋和装袋过程中的粉尘暴露。工业矿物的码垛。对 50 到 100 磅的袋子进行手动装袋和码垛的工人通常在采矿和矿物加工作业的所有工人中接触到的粉尘最高。本文将概述适用于装袋作业的可用粉尘控制技术，并介绍最近在四个不同工业砂作业中进行的案例研究的结果，以确定当前使用的装袋和码垛技术类型，并评估它们在减少工人接触可吸入结晶二氧化硅粉尘。还将进行评估以确定是否可以通过对现有技术进行额外的修改或改进来进一步降低可吸入粉尘水平。