Why This Community Is Up In Arms Over Quarry Dust.

A story out of Victoria demonstrates how dust from a workplace can affect not just workers but can have an impact on the surrounding community as well.

Images published by the Mornington Peninsula News shows parents protesting at a local school over fears dust from a quarry planned nearby will harm their children.

The report detailed how doctors have written to the state’s Premier and senior ministers warning about the health risks of opening another quarry in a seaside town located 75 km south of Melbourne’s CBD.

The 120 doctors make the case that dust could harm children at a nearby school and an early childhood learning centre.

The Planning Minister is assessing the quarry proposal. An environmental effects statement is due sometime in 2023, while Federal government approval is also required.

The company behind the quarry said it prioritised the safety of employees and the community.

The doctors – who include respiratory and allergy specialists, eight paediatricians and 29 GPs – state that “thousands of local children would grow from toddlers to teenagers near this quarry”.

“Children and infants are particularly vulnerable to air pollution … [as are] the elderly, pregnant women, smokers and those with existing respiratory disease or cardiovascular disease,” the doctors say.

“Expert opinion supports a causal link between exposure to respirable crystalline silica and several diseases, including cancer and lung disease.

“Little is known so far about how silica exposure affects people outside of this setting, but we believe that the risks are serious.”

How neXtrack Is Working To Make Workplaces Safer

neXtrack is an Australian-made solution to the occupational lung disease epidemic, including silicosis.

It’s a new end-to-end solution for hazard control and real-time compliance monitoring that was created to help the industry respond to the devastating rise in occupational lung diseases such as silicosis that has now affected more than 500 workers across the country.

It’s an automated monitoring platform for hazards like dust. It digitises processes, provides real-time feedback, and protects workers from occupational Illnesses.

In 2019 the Federal Government established the National Dust Disease Taskforce to address concerns about the emerging trend of new cases in accelerated silicosis in Australia.

Silicosis is caused by inhaling respirable crystalline silica generated when cutting, grinding and polishing material with silica. The re-emergence of silicosis has been mostly driven by the popularity of engineered stone material used in benchtops since the early 2000s.

While silicosis can take decades to emerge after exposure, the Taskforce found more than 500 cases of silicosis had been identified from 2000-2019. Overall, people diagnosed with silicosis lose on average 11.6 years of life, so prevention is vital.

The Taskforce handed down a final report in July this year that contained seven recommendations that support a range of regulatory and non-regulatory actions designed to have an impact in short to medium term on improving worker health and safety.