COSHH Air Sampling Manchester

COSHH Assessment Manchester

Brian Milligan is a Chartered Occupational Hygienist and Fellow of the Faculty of Occupational Hygiene…

Under the COSHH Regulations, employers must assess the risks of exposure to hazardous substances in the workplace. We undertake COSHH assessment and workplace air sampling for hazardous substances – dust and fume such as welding fume, wood dust, paper dust, flour dust, isocyanates, solvents, dyes and pigments, plastics extrusion fumes, diesel engine exhaust fumes etc.

In a large complex workplace, COSHH assessment can seem like an overwhelming problem. Don’ t despair! – Just call Brian Milligan Associates on 0161 792 2269. We can make the task easier for you.

Looking at each process, we will:

Look at each area or process in turn
Identify the substances posing a hazard
Assess the intensity and extent of exposure
Interpret exposure in the light of current standards
Evaluate the effectiveness of control measures
Recommend improved control if necessary

You can only truly find out what your employees are inhaling by air sampling. We use both personal sampling (where the sampler is worn by a person) and static sampling (at a fixed locations).

Air Sampling Manchester

It’ s important that an air sampling survey is properly designed to answer the right questions, so that the client knows exactly what to expect from the survey. For that reason we always supply a precise method statement together with a quotation after an initial visit to assess the client’s requirements.

The strategy of a workplace air sampling survey will typically involve one or more of the following:

Accurately determining employee exposure over a shift to compare against Workplace Exposure Limits
Determining relative exposure of workers on different tasks or different machines, to help set priorities for control
Static sampling to monitor background concentrations in the workroom
Static sampling to monitor levels at frequently occupied workstations
Static sampling to detect, or monitor the composition of, substances emitted from processes at specific points

Air sampling techniques are many and varied. Direct-reading instruments are suitable for very short-term measurements. Usually it is more important to sample the air over several hours. For this, a battery-operated pump is often used to draw the air through a suitable sampling medium, such as a filter or a tube of absorbent polymer or charcoal. Sometimes a passive or diffusive sampler is more convenient, obviating the requirement for any pump.