Occupational Health Hazards Associated with Continuous Exposure to Quarry Activities among Quarry Workers in Ebonyi State, South East Geopolitical Zone, Nigeria

Abstract

Dust emissions may be considered among\r the most critical hazards to be found \rin quarries due to the design and nature of this working environment. Not only \rdoes dust impair the quality of the air from an environmental perspective, but it \ralso impinges on the health and safety of workers. Those responsible for the \rquarry must demonstrate their compliance with industry standards and legal \rregulations, and are thereby required to implement several dust mitigation \rtechniques in order to comply with air quality standards and pollutant emission \rlimits. The aim of this paper is firstly to evaluate how quarry workers are \raffected by the mitigation techniques designed to reduce the impact of dust \remissions on the environment. Secondly, an attempt is made to determine which \rof the proposed strategies is the most effective both in reducing emissions and in \rreducing the workers’ exposure, and thus defining a suitable strategy on which to \rfocus. The analysis is carried out in fo\rur consecutive phases. \rIn the first, the \rPM\r10\r concentration is sampled and the daily exposure of workers to the \rrespirable fraction of airborne dust \ris measured. In the second, mitigation \rtechniques, are applied to the main sour\rces of dust according to the technical \rguidelines stipulated in international standards and norms. In the third phase, the \rpollutant concentration (PM\r10\r) is resampled at various points throughout the \rquarry plant and a further sampling camp\raign is carried ou\rt with personal \rsamplers to assess workers’ exposure and \rtheir daily dose. A comparison of these \rtwo sets of values allows both the effectiveness of the applied dust mitigation \rtechniques and the influence of PM\r10\r concentration on the respirable fraction of \rairborne dust to be quantified. In the final phase, personal samplers are used in \rorder to test the Functional Analysis \rSpace Technique risk assessment procedure \rin forecasting the daily dose.