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Some jobs involve engineering and selling industrial air filtration systems which are designed to remove process emissions. Process emissions like welding smoke for example which factory employees are exposed to all day every day.

Typically what happens is that a disgruntled employee makes a call to OSHA to report that the welding smoke level seems high, so it must be dangerous. This scenario happens relatively often in the real world, oddly enough OSHA’s response isn’t to ban welding smoke in the alleged facility or have lawmakers pass sweeping welding smoke bans in the workplace, rather; its response is to conduct air quality testing to determine if welding smoke levels pose a hazard in that particular facility.

OSHA doesn’t have a permissible exposure limit or PEL for “welding smoke” as a whole because welding smoke contains hundreds of hazardous components too long to list here. Components like hexavalent chromium, beryllium, lead, nickel, arsenic, asbestos, etc. But OSHA does have a permissible exposure limit (PEL) for the individual components of welding smoke.

So OSHA conducts air quality testing on the individual airborne components, if the results come in lower, or safer than its set PEL, the facility is given an acceptable bill of health and allowed to conduct business as usual. If testing yields results which exceed current OSHA PELs it doesn’t ban welding, rather it allows the facility to improve its air quality by upgrading its ventilation or filtration system. OSHA PELs are the safe acceptable level of exposure to humans for an 8 hour day, 40 hour per week time period.

So now let’s get back to secondhand smoke’..OSHA also has a pel for each and every one of the “hazardous” components of secondhand smoke. The five AQ test results above prove that secondhand smoke levels are 2.6 ‘ 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations. In other words, not a workplace health hazard.

People have called me a smoker’s rights advocate, however as a non-smoker it’s more accurate to call me a property rights, and jobs rights advocate. Whether pro-smoking ban activists admit it or not smoking bans eliminate businesses and jobs at an alarming rate, 258+ bars and restaurants and approximately 10,000 jobs in the Twin Cities have been eliminated since local smoking bans went into effect. More.

Related posts:

1. Third-hand smoke is a new health risk
2. Cigarette smoke makes flu and viral infections worse
3. What happens after you stop smoking?