Thread: An Interesting Discussion

It should be treated similarly to asbestos and Silicosis
A real health hazard
more education and understanding required

You would surprised at how many otherwise intelligent people don't take health dangers seriously. it has taken a lot of years and a very serious education program to convince people that smoking is a health issue. You may surprised to know that in some Men's Sheds and woodworking clubs there are people who actively object to putting in effective dust extraction.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

You may surprised to know that in some Men's Sheds and woodworking clubs there are people who actively object to putting in effective dust extraction.

Really! Because they'd rather spend the money on something else? Or what is going on in their heads?

As an aside, when I first read your post, Chris, I was wondering what the medical condition ABG is.

I will give you that one Dave, badly written on my part and now clarified.

G'Day Chris, A few years ago Defence, in particular the Navy started following up veterans about asbestos and all sorts of chemicals used in service offering blood, heart, lung and airways monitoring as we didn't have OHS in our day, just do as your were ordered with what was giving you to do it with. I've lost a few shipmates already to heart and lung diseases; it's good to see and hear about your endeavours to assist the Men's Shed organization. Cheers Peter

Chris - this graphic might cause a few more people to pay attention at your seminars.
Although Wood dust is a known nail, tracheal and bronchial carcinogen, these cancers are a relatively minor player in the impact of fine dust on human health.

This graphics is from an article I referred to in a 2017 post.
Developments in Dust Sensor tech


Screen Shot 2021-12-08 at 5.34.58 pm.jpg

BobL Is that chart worldwide figures? Or one country?

Originally Posted by Flintlock

BobL Is that chart worldwide figures? Or one country?

World wide.
About the same number of people died from dust in 2020 as did from Covid. The spread is of course not the same with most people dying from dust living in the dustier regions of the middle east, southern Asia and sub-Saharan and Saharan Africa.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

You would surprised at how many otherwise intelligent people don't take health dangers seriously. it has taken a lot of years and a very serious education program to convince people that smoking is a health issue. You may surprised to know that in some Men's Sheds and woodworking clubs there are people who actively object to putting in effective dust extraction.

Originally Posted by aldav

... Really! Because they'd rather spend the money on something else?

Or what is going on in their heads? ...

That is the million dollar question!

I have a very good friend, a fitter and turner many years ago, and a victim of industrial deafness. But he objects to virtually all forms of safety equipment - unnecessary, and it just gets in the way and slows you down and causes accidents. Dust extraction - the sawdust lying around provides a measure of productivity - create heaps (literally)!

He does not accept that deafness may be industry related.

It is almost like a religious conviction.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

You would surprised at how many otherwise intelligent people don't take health dangers seriously. it has taken a lot of years and a very serious education program to convince people that smoking is a health issue. You may surprised to know that in some Men's Sheds and woodworking clubs there are people who actively object to putting in effective dust extraction.

My experience is with most sheds there are

1 a few members with underlying health conditions that really want something done about shed dust - at one shed a member left and said he'd return when something was done about the dust
2 a few members who don't have any underlying health conditions but realize dust is an issued are prepared to do something about it.
3 the majority of members are not that fussed either way
4 a few members who think OHS is a waste of their time and the sheds money.

It's really difficult to convince the 4th group so its the 3rd group that we need to win over..

Discussions in this forum most probably do not do much to increase the education amongst wood workers because we are all aware of it, the converted so to speak. Because the internet has killed printed magazine sales it is extremely difficult to educate on any wide spread basis and no, I don't think it can be done on the internet as well as it can in printed media, a combination of both might be better. Apart from misguided fools putting out rubbish on YT we now have retailers doing their own promotions with the same misguided story. What makes it worse in my view is the demographic of the MS organisation and retired others is older people who are not in the main digitally aware for the most part. Each shed is its own organisation and we are being approached by individual sheds purely on word of mouth to do seminars, better than nothing but not ideal.

Within the MS organisation there are sheds in very isolated areas that are extremely small with not many members and even less money or the means to raise money for luxuries (as some see it) such as dust extraction. For an average shed the cost is around $14,000 which for some is nearly mission impossible. That number includes automatic BG management as well because without it the system is usually misused because people are forgetful or simply can't be bothered opening and closing blast gates when using machines. It used to drive me mad in my own shed so I do have some understanding of the problem.

The next problem is supply of suitable dust extractors. Our go to recommendation has been a Clearvue Max, for bigger sheds there is a cyclone from at least one retailer that is much better as it uses a 17" impeller. I had a chat to Stephen Durley the other day and he told me that there was no CV's of any kind in the country and no order can be placed for reasons I will not go into. On looking for a suitable substitute because if we are going to do the education we had better have some answers at least one retailer no longer brings in the 17" impeller machine and another is having a discussion on wholesale pricing on a machine I would be prepared to recommend which does not bode well for future buyers. Anyone thinking of buying a DE now had better do it because as the present stock is sold prices are going to go up a huge amount to the point local manufacture might be feasible.

I'm not convince printed media would help at mens sheds. Blokes don't go there to read, they go there to make and fix things.

At the mens shed we have received several comprehensive deceased estates collections worth of glossy woodwork and other craft books and magazines, in excellent conditions and we set them up on a library bookshelf. I reckon in the 5/6 years I was a member at the shed these might have been referred to a total of a half dozen times and that was by members looking for plans. We also spent hundreds on DVDs along the same lines and the last time I looked at the borrowing register for the DVDs had fewer than a dozen names in it.

Printed media works for people who already have a high level of interest in a topic but my impression is that most mens shed members (and members of the public) are not in that league. They just want to make a few toys for their grand kids or fix a couple of chairs or tell someone else how to do something. Another problem is that many members believe they don't need to learn anything new to get their job done.

[QUOTE=BobL;2264065]Chris - this graphic might cause a few more people to pay attention at your seminars.
Although Wood dust is a known nail, tracheal and bronchial carcinogen, these cancers are a relatively minor player in the impact of fine dust on human health.

It would be great if we could gather all these type of graphs and statistics together so I could make a PP presentation for my Menzshed. As you say, most just don't care.

[QUOTE=Flintlock;2264904]

Originally Posted by BobL

Chris - this graphic might cause a few more people to pay attention at your seminars.
Although Wood dust is a known nail, tracheal and bronchial carcinogen, these cancers are a relatively minor player in the impact of fine dust on human health.

It would be great if we could gather all these type of graphs and statistics together so I could make a PP presentation for my Menzshed. As you say, most just don't care.

There's always my (overly) long wood dust video on YT

Understanding dust and dust removal in Men's Sheds - YouTube

Sorry the quality is not that good, it was done with my old Phone from my shed with a rather dodgy WiFi connection.

I also have a few powerpoint presentations on this topic I'm happy to share .