Personal Monitoring Badges
Personal monitoring badges have been shown to be the most cost-effective and convenient method of collecting full-shift samples in workers’ personal breathing zones.
Personal monitoring badges are also employed outside of workplaces when one desires to measure the time-averaged chemical exposure to a person or a location. Badges are especially useful in indoor and outdoor air quality studies aimed at measuring daily, weekly, or monthly average levels.
Personal sampling tubes, driven by a belt-mounted sampling pump, can also sample within the breathing zone, but are less cost-effective and less convenient for the employer, and more disruptive to the worker. More…
Workplace Exposure Limits
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other organizations have issued exposure limits (ELs) for more than 600 chemical contaminants that specify a time-weighted average (TWA) concentration. The TWA contaminant concentration shall not be exceeded in any worker’s personal breathing zone.
Compliance with Exposure Limits
To comply with OSHA rules, the TWA concentration to which workers are exposed should not exceed the exposure limit for any work shift. Some employers adopt a sampling strategy to ensure that no worker will ever be exposed above an exposure limit. Other employers, aware that they will not be cited unless an inspector collects a non-compliant sample in their facility, sample less often, hoping they will not be “caught.”