Am I overreacting?

Silaqui

Hi there,

I'm a D&T teacher and we do use MDF in our workshops without students using masks, but only if they are working by hand. Any major machining requires masks to be used. Our risk assessments take this into account (found this online, might be off use - I couldn't remember the name of the document we have in school)

"Hand operations and small amounts of drilling on a pillar drill are acceptable if there is
good ventilation and general dispersal of the dust is controlled. A toxic dust mask or appropriate dust
extraction system is essential for all other machining operations."

from http://www.lordgrey.org.uk/~f018/design/usefulresources/Cleapss/Common/Resource/PS%2033%20MDF.pdf

It's because the hand processes, although they create dust, it doesn't tend to fly up and get into the air quite so much as machining does, and how I imagine it would in industry. When students are machining MDF, they do have to wear the right PPE.

I'm sure the school are aware of the safety implications of MDF, and they are probably going by similar rules such as these.

More here from the Design and Technology Association http://www.data.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=877&Itemid=696#mdf

Silaqui