Facts About Dust Diseases

Dusts are found everywhere. They are found in the general atmosphere and in many workplaces, both industrial and agricultural. Whether dust causes a disease depends on factors including the properties of the dust, the amount inhaled, the size of the dust particles and the efficiency of one's lungs at clearing themselves out. Very fine, invisible, easily breathed in particles are most likely to cause disease.

Types of Dusts
Dusts fall into three basic groups: mineral, organic and chemical. Each type tends to cause a different pattern of disease.

Mineral Dusts: Are formed from rocks and ores found in the earth's crust. These dusts are often called inorganic dusts because they are formed from nonliving materials. Mineral dusts are generated in mining or quarrying processes, during blasting and tunneling, and during the transportation of the raw materials. Milling, crushing and grinding this material, mixing and loading the ore for foundry operations, preparing clays for pottery, tiles and brick; carving monuments is also dusty work. Coal is an unusual case. It is usually grouped with mineral dusts because it behaves the same way. Coal is actually an organic dust, derived from formerly living material.

Organic Dusts: Are derived from living materials-plants, animals, microorganisms and from products like wood and leather. Dusts are created during the harvesting of plant materials such as grains, coffee beans, cotton, flax, and timber. Animal and poultry farming produces dust also. Woodworking and leatherwork involve considerable exposure to organic dusts. All these dusts are considered causes of lung cancer.

Chemical Dusts: An increased number of synthetic chemicals are used in industry, business, agriculture and the home. Many of these chemicals are in powder form and their dusts too may cause disease if inhaled.

How Dust Invades Your Lungs

Miners digging into the earth may spend working hours with dust swirling around them. Plant workers may perform grinding operations in which clouds of dust are released. Goggles may protect their eyes. Unless their noses and mouths are also protected with effective masks, some of the smallest bits of dust work their way into the small airways and tiny air pockets of the lungs.

The dust also gets into the lung's lymph vessels and glands, which make up a canal-like system of drainage for lymph fluid.

The lungs can usually handle a brief episode of dust inhalation. If the worker continues to breath in great amounts of harmful material, dust is found throughout the lungs. This may not cause major trouble, but in some cases, these deposits may cause injury and scarring, and even death.