Real-time monitoring offers solutions to us in our everyday lives. Whether it’s the real-time alerts that tells you that you’re at risk or in danger, or the subsequent data which provides you accurate information on what you’re monitoring, real-time monitoring has become an essential part of our lives.
But what about real-time monitoring when it comes to enhancing the workforce? You’d rely on real-time monitoring and alarms to tell you there’s a fire in your home, so why wouldn’t you rely on real-time monitoring to tell you if you were a risk as serious to your health at work? You’d rely on real-time data to tell you if you needed to track nutrition or health trends, so why wouldn’t you rely on essential data in real-time in the workplace?
Whether it’s for the health and safety of you and your colleagues, to better understand the processes and efficiency of the business, or just to help aid decisions, real-time monitoring can provide valuable data to workforces across a whole range of industries. Whether you are monitoring for hazardous substances like dust or silica, or monitoring for HAV, sound levels or proximity measures, real-time monitoring can enhance your workforce.
Learn more about our real-time fixed, portable and personal dust and silica dust monitors, can help improve your safety processes and keep your workers safe from harmful dust today.
‘PM’ or particulate matter, also known as particle pollution is the term for a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets found in the air.
It’s estimated that air pollution is linked to 43,000 deaths per year in the UK. Worldwide, at least 7 million people die each year from exposure to air pollution, with 91% of the worldwide population living in locations where the air quality exceeded the World Health Organisations (WHO) air pollution guidelines.
These guidelines state that that annual average concentrations of PM2.5 should not exceed 5 µg/m3 and PM10 should not exceed 15 µg/m3 (both for 24-hour periods). According to the WHO, ‘fine particulate matter at PM2.5 can penetrate through the lungs and further enter the body through the blood stream, affecting all major organs’. Exposure to dust at PM2.5 can cause serious disease to the respiratory system, such as lung cancer and COPD, and also can effect cardiovascular diseases, such as a stroke.
The image below demonstrates PM2.5 and PM10 size in comparison to a single human hair and a grain of sand.
The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the UK government ministerial department for environment protection, have also highlighted the severity of exposure to air pollution. This growing concern for the UK government estimated in 2010 that the cost of health impacts of air pollution was likely to exceed estimates of £8bn to £20bn.
Although between 2005 and 2022, the UK’s PM2.5 emissions decreased by 41%, emission levels have been relatively steady with small annual fluctuations in the last decade. Industrial combustion is a major source of PM emissions, as well as emissions from industrial production also playing a major part, which can be linked to heavy-dust industry where hazardous particulates can become airborne. Despite some reductions in PM emissions, the threat still very much remains.
A solution to this is real-time dust monitoring. Real-time particulate monitoring allows people in heavy dust loading environments, including industrial applications, to not only understand, but alert them instantaneously when they are exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution. For example, our AIR XD Dust Monitor can alert people in real-time when legislative levels of µg/m3 are breached, over a time-weighted average (TWA) 8-hour period, for both PM2.5 and PM10.
This technology not only offers a simple solution to individuals at high risk of exposure to air pollution by providing instant alerts, but also can help to prevent exposure in the future, as at-risk individuals can learn exactly when and where exposure to air pollution is highest and will likely occur. Thanks to real-time monitoring, both in the UK and Worldwide, we can reduce exposure to air pollution.
Learn more about our real-time fixed total dust area monitor, AIR XD, can help improve your safety processes and keep your workers safe from harmful dust today.
The AIR XS Silica Monitor leverages cutting-edge Optical Refraction Technology (ORT) to enhance workplace safety by providing real-time monitoring of respirable crystalline silica (RCS). Unlike traditional particle monitors, AIR XS distinguishes and measures RCS content, enabling immediate detection and response to harmful silica dust levels. This technology is crucial in combating occupational lung diseases such as silicosis, which affects millions of workers globally.
Current monitoring methods, like gravimetric sampling, are time-consuming and often deliver results too late to prevent exposure. In contrast, real-time silica monitoring offers immediate data, significantly reducing the risk of occupational silicosis by enabling prompt action to mitigate hazardous conditions. The importance of such real-time data is highlighted by cases like Joanna McNeill’s, who developed silicosis at the age of just 36. Her story, like many others underscores the necessity for continuous monitoring to protect workers from the threat of silicosis, regardless of their occupational environment.
Our real-time RCS monitor, AIR XS provides a real-time solution to this threat. Workers are not only alarmed and alerted when silica levels exceed legislative limits but can work to best practices by implementing AIR XS with the Hierarchy of Controls, supporting proactive measures to eliminate or minimise exposure to RCS. This move to real-time monitoring as a solution to the threat of silicosis has also been noticed by governing bodies, like the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Respiratory Health.
Learn more about our real-time fixed silica dust monitor, AIR XS, can help improve your safety processes and keep your workers safe from harmful RCS today.
New test findings released, confirm the efficacy of a world-first real-time monitor for silica dust, which represents a revolution in the protection for workers exposed to respirable crystalline silica (RCS) dust.
As a leading workplace safety technology company, we have developed the AIR XS Silica Monitor, designed to protect workers against lung diseases such as silicosis by providing real-time readings of levels of crystalline silica in the air.
We have recently commissioned a leading occupational hygiene and laboratory testing organisation to conduct independent testing of the AIR XS. The results show the AIR XS repeatedly provided consistent, accurate, real-time data throughout an eight-hour testing period.
The testing demonstrates that AIR XS can improve worker safety by providing instant information to businesses and workers exposed to RCS, instead of having to wait up to four weeks to know their level of exposure to this killer dust, which is the current industry standard.
While the Australian Government recently implemented a ban on engineered stone, commencing 1 July 2024, the process most synonymous with creating silica dust, Group CEO Glyn Pierce-Jones said this ban alone would not solve the current health crisis caused by RCS.
“Silica dust is found in most building materials, so while banning engineered stone is a positive step, it’s not a holistic solution. The real issue facing the industry is the current archaic methods of testing for silica dust and the delay it causes in creating the safest possible workplace.”
The AIR XS is already being used in Australia to monitor RCS levels in many industrial locations.
Silica occurs naturally in soil, sand and granite; however, it is almost harmless in that state. Once those materials have been disturbed through construction or mining, silica dust is generated and can be inhaled into the lungs. This dust can cause silicosis, and other types of lung diseases and cancer, which are often irreversible and progressive.
Recent research from The Lung Foundation showed an estimated 600,000 Australian workers and between 40-50 million workers worldwide are exposed to silica dust across a wide range of industries including quarrying, construction, tunnelling, mining and many manufacturing processes.
The current approach to test for RCS is gravimetric sampling, the process requires collection, processing, and laboratory analysis of the sample, which is both time-consuming and costly for businesses. Direct-reading instruments offer businesses the ability to monitor employee safety on sites in real-time, eliminating the delays of weeks typically associated with potential RCS exposure.
Mr Pierce-Jones emphasised the urgent need for enhanced safety measures for anyone who may be in contact with silica.
“The current testing methodology for RCS only allows users to take an average reading over an eight-hour period and typically takes up to four weeks to produce a result,” Mr Pierce-Jones said.
“Our AIR XS Silica Monitor was designed to provide an accurate reading with immediate results, letting workers know when their health is in danger and allowing employers to respond in the most efficient manner.”
“These latest test results are another indicator of what we already knew at Trolex – that the AIR XS could be part of a desperately needed solution to an urgent health crisis.”
You can request the full independent AIR XS testing report by following the link below.
In this exclusive interview with Trolex, Gordon Sommerville shares his first-hand experience of the dangers of silica exposure and what you can do to protect yourself and others from the dangers of silica dust.
“The only cure for dusty diseases at the moment is not to let dust get inside the body, which means in order for silica induced diseases to be classed as 100% preventable, awareness of the hazard throughout the exposed population is required.”
Gordon, now a retired stonemason, was diagnosed with silicosis in 2015. He started his career working in the construction industry after leaving school in 1976 and soon became a stonemason and builder to trade. In such an environment, working on projects both large and small throughout his career, dust was everywhere.
“No matter what type of work I was carrying out or who I was working for, daily dust was involved — and lots of it. I did not realise dust was making me ill but during my career there were little clues which should have raised a red flag.”
Gordon’s aim in sharing his story is to inform, educate and highlight the dangers of exposure to silica dust and to give advice to individuals who work in similar industries on how to avoid the issues that he now faces as a result of silicosis.
Learn more about our real-time fixed silica dust monitor, AIR XS, can help improve your safety processes and keep your workers safe from harmful RCS today.
New studies from charity ‘Asthma and Lung UK’ (ALUK) found that lung disease deaths in the UK are the highest in Western Europe.
The staggering statistics have prompted an expanded approach towards research and development of lung diseases from ALUK.
ALUK’s studies show that cases of lung disease related deaths in the UK have been on the rise for the past 20 years.
It is reported that 500,000 people in the UK died from deaths relating to lung diseases over a seven-year period.
In 2018 alone, 84,721 respiratory deaths were recorded in the UK.
The charity has described the state of lung health in the UK as ‘shameful’, stating the need for improved research and development solutions to the problem.
After its relaunch in February, ALUK established a new five-year strategy upon the results of the study.
Lung diseases are currently the third most common cause of death in the UK and it’s currently costing the NHS £9 billion every year.
Despite this, lung-related health care is receiving less than 2% of public funding.
It is evident that the seriousness of lung problems in relation to other diseases is not taken as seriously, despite what we are seeing from the data.
A predominant factor in the poor state of the nation’s lung health is that people believe lung conditions aren’t life-threatening. This is a major misconception.
Through spreading awareness of how ‘shameful’ lung health is in the UK, this misconception can be dispelled.
ALUK aim to reduce lung disease deaths by 20% by 2027. When making everyone aware of these gruesome statistics, this can become a possibility.
The end goal is to provide support for everyone effected by all forms of lung disease.
ALUK’s solution to achieving this goal is through research and innovation.
Their aim is to expand their research and innovation programme so that £5 million is being invested into relevant research each year.
With the aim to “develop at least three new self-management tools” for 2 million people suffering with lung diseases, ALUK want to make training programmes and essential advice easily accessible to those who need it.
“By 2027, we will give 80% of people with lung conditions the opportunity to access our network of Breathe Easy support groups” states the ALUK Strategy to 2027.
With this, the strain on public healthcare is minimised and individuals are able to monitor their personal health through digitalised platforms and shared networks.
The statistics right now make for harrowing reading and harsh truths.
However, for ALUK, research and innovation is the solution for the future. By identifying the problem and acknowledging its severity and scale, goals can be achieved.
Through effective research and innovation lung disease deaths can become a thing of the past, not just in the UK, but worldwide.
Trolex are excited to be partnered with Active Environmental Solutions (AES), working together to protect workers from the dangerous and often irreversible consequences of occupational lung diseases caused by dust inhalation.
With AES’s specialist knowledge of occupational health and safety in Australian industries and Trolex’s leading safety technology, the opportunity of delivering solutions to prevent the dangers of dust inhalation for Australian workers, is not just a possibility, but now a reality.
AES want to spread awareness of the dangers of occupational lung diseases caused by dust inhalation. And in the case of dust monitoring, spreading awareness that new real-time dust monitoring technology to help prevent lethal occupational respiratory diseases now exists.
The opportunity to partner with Trolex was welcomed by AES, as it means that they can merge their expertise in occupational health using Trolex’s leading safety technology.
This creates the best solutions to their respective industries.
This simple message appealed to AES, and to Aleks Todorovic MSc, (OHP), Managing Director of AES’s team of Australian Occupational Safety experts at AES, as it aligned perfectly with the workers they seek to protect:
“Many businesses intuitively know the benefit of a broad threat detection – they just don’t know they know it, or perhaps how they go about implementing such devices – it’s our job to awaken that knowledge and show them there are new and effective dust detection technologies such as the Trolex AIR XD Dust Monitor, the XD ONE Personal Dust Monitor and most recently, the AIR XS Silica Monitor.
There are no arm twisting, or heavy sales techniques involved. Just a clear and simple presentation of responding to the facts.
Which is why Trolex and AES are working hard to provide further education to Australia’s mining, tunnelling, quarrying and construction industries, where workers are exposed to dangerous forms of respirable dusts.
This common goal of providing and expert knowledge and specialist equipment to these industries is the drive needed to inevitably reduce instances of occupational lung diseases to save lives.
Now, this collaboration will help to do exactly that.
The approach taken by businesses within these industries must now change. With new legislation on exposure to harmful dust in Australia, new dust monitoring methods are needing to be implemented.
Aleks said “As an occupational hygiene-minded business we know only too well the devastating effects inhaling respirable dusts can have on people’s long-term health.”
“That’s why we’re invested in the success and distribution of new and effective real-time dust monitoring technologies such as the Trolex AIR XD Dust Monitor, the XD ONE Portable Dust Monitor and the AIR XS Silica Monitor. These are lifesaving technologies that need to be included in their safety thinking” stated Aleks further.
By using Trolex’s advanced dust monitoring technologies, small changes can have a huge impact.
As the war on silica dust grows ever stronger by the day, more needs to be done.
With the reduction in exposure limits coming into effect across Australia, particularly hard on respirable crystalline silica (RCS), real-time monitoring for silica dust is a necessity, retaining live data and providing an instant alarm the legislated threshold is breached.
Whilst the ability to retrospectively assess levels of silica dust in facilities is available to industries where deadly silica dust is prevalent, the ability to monitor for silica dust in real time is not.
Trolex’s all new real-time silica monitor, the AIR XS, allows for accurate and reliable results demonstrating compliance with legislation. Aleks commented on this world-first technology:
“We are really excited to be a part of this project to be able to detect silica in real time. This will be the world’s first monitor to have this capability and we’re proud to be distributing it throughout Australia. The project was produced with the support of the Centre for Work Health and Safety in NSW proving just how important and potentially life-saving the new technology will be.”
And with the talk of real-time, wearable silica monitoring devices a possibility in the future, of course it makes perfect sense for all industries to be increasingly focused on detection possibilities.
Together, Trolex and AES are providing real solutions for real problems in Australia.
If you’d like to speak to one of our experts about integrating real-time dust monitoring technology into your working environment, then you can use the contact form below to get in touch with one of our experts today.
Have you heard of the ‘psychological contract’? It’s the unwritten understanding of the interaction between you, your workplace environment and your colleagues.
We all have a psychological contract with our employers, whether we know it or not.
As well as considering the physical aspects of your work environment, your psychological contract includes things like the quality of relationships you have with the people you work with, whether you feel properly listened to and understood and know what’s expected of you in your role.
An important part of that contract is ‘psychological safety’. How safe or unsafe your psychological contract leaves you feeling at work.
A term coined in 1999 by organisational behavioural scientist, Amy Edmondson, ‘psychological safety’ includes things like trust in your colleagues, your perception of physical threat in your working environment and how you feel about the training and support you get to do your job.
Unsurprisingly, the safer people feel at work, both physically and emotionally, the more productive they are.
By the same token, if people feel unsafe, then not only are they less productive, but the time the trouble and expense of having to replace people unhappy in their jobs is huge.
Employee benefits provider Perkbox estimates that ‘disengaged employees are costing the UK economy £340 billion every year in lost training and recruitment costs, sick days, productivity, creativity and innovation.’
So how can you make sure that people in your organisation feel psychologically safe?
The first important step in creating a psychologically safe workplace is to make it as physically safe as possible.
Speaking with Trolex, Occupational Psychologist Catherine Dobson told us, “If an environment is not physically safe, if it’s too hot, too cold, or if it feels too dangerous people feel stressed. We must ask ourselves how do we get the right environment for people with the right kind of training, the right kind of cooperation to make it healthier?
Which is what contributes to making our range of dust monitors, such an important development. These include the AIR XD Dust Monitor, the XD ONE Portable Dust Monitor – our wearable dust monitoring technology, and our AIR XS Silica Monitor for real-time silica dust monitoring.
Not simply because it protects workers from the physical dangers of inhaling lethal respirable dusts, but because armed with the knowledge that they are working safely, people feel psychologically safer too.
Catherine explains how: “In relation to silica and dust monitoring. Because the AIR XS Silica Monitor is new, there’s scope for demonstrating that it works. And people can see that.
Also, because all these dust monitors work in real time, it gives people the trust that an intervention will take place should they be in danger. They can trust in the environment being safe.”
A very good thing for workers on both a physical and emotional level.
And great news, too, for the mining, tunnelling, quarrying, manufacturing and construction companies invested in fulfilling their side of the psychological contract with advanced dust monitoring.
Businesses can then reap the rewards of improved production and better worker retention, so everybody wins.
An independent UK agency responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in Great Britain, carried out a series of tests on three XD One Portable Dust Monitor units.
They compared them to the following dust monitors: Casella CEL-712 Microdust Pro, a Thermo Scientific MIE Personal DataRam (pDR) 1500, a TSI SidePak AM510.
The key elements of the testing were as follows:
The results from the independent testing demonstrated that the XD ONE performs better than other personal dust monitors on the market. There were five critical messages from the testing as outlined below:
It’s one thing claiming to design, develop and manufacture the world’s most accurate, easy to maintain, and best value wearable dust monitoring device – which we do.
But substantiating that claim?
Backing it up with the facts, with independent verifiable research? Field testing our device and comparing it like-for-like with other similar products to prove our point – is that even possible?
It certainly is.
We can prove that the XD ONE Portable Dust Monitor is the world’s leading wearable dust monitoring system.
Courtesy of The HSE – a completely independent UK Government compliance body and one of the leading organisations of its type in the world – who recently completed a series of dust monitoring tests.
Their tests compared three XD ONE units (to capture a reliable spread of results) with three other commercially available personal dust monitors.
To measure the mean respirable and inhalable dust concentrations, two gravimetric samplers were also tested against the Trolex XD ONE – The GK 2.69 cyclone (BGI by Mesa Labs) and the IOM inhalable sampler (SKC Inc.).
Using Arizona Road Dust, the preferred type of dust for dust monitor trials, testing was undertaken in a 1 m x 1 m x 3 m calm air chamber, at three different dust concentrations – low 2 mg/m³, medium 5 mg/m3, and high 11 mg/m3.
At the medium and highest concentrations, the test lasted for 60 minutes. At the lowest concentration, the test lasted for 120 minutes to make sure enough dust was sampled by the gravimetric samplers to achieve a reliable reading.
Dust concentration was tested in three steps (20 minutes at each stage) from the lowest to the highest. Once at the maximum, the concentration was stepped back down to zero at the same rate.
In a word… impressive.
Saving lives and protecting workers’ health by preventing dust inhalation is a serious business. And so too is putting our technology and our reputation on the line against much bigger and better funded competitors, and vastly more expensive products.
The HSE testing provided a clear endorsement of our ‘marker leader’ claim. But it went further still. Taking into account the XD ONE’s size and weight, cost, ease of set up and ease of maintenance, the tests underlined its practical, performance and competitive advantages in the most emphatic terms.
The results speak for themselves.
When faced with a rational decision between the XD ONE and a competing product – the choice is crystal clear. You’d choose the XD ONE every time.