Maintaining health & safety through the use of centralised vacuum cleaning systems

Whilst it may seem that air cleaning through large-scale ventilation is a primary option, many businesses could drastically improve their facilities through on-tool extraction directly at the source of the problem. This involves the use of high vac systems to transport the waste to a centralised location for easy disposal, or to intermediate pre-separators for potential recycling.

A major benefit of a good high vac system is that it can also be used for general cleaning as an 'in-house' vacuum, negating the need for both sweeping (which creates an enormous amount of hazardous airborne dust in itself) and mobile vacuums. Whilst mobile units can work in certain situations, they can easily fall foul of poor maintenance, are often fitted with unsuitable filtration quality, and can cause trip hazards or manual handling issues.

With COSHH stating that the primary method of dust removal should be at its source, and the fact that a proper in-house cleaning schedule could actually reduce or eliminate the requirement for ATEX zoning, it is no wonder that leading companies in many industries are now adopting high vac solutions. These include aircraft manufacturers, automotive manufacturers, body shop repair firms, wind turbine manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, electronics manufacturers, and the food industry.

Businesses are realising that, rather than being a capital cost problem, an integrated dust extraction system can really help them move forward unhindered through the reduction of health, working practice and quality issues. Indeed, a clean environment and healthy staff will reap benefits of reduced sickness costs and project a better profile to customers.

At Dustcontol UK, we design and install complete source extraction systems which can be fully integrated into the production process for recycling or used for efficient and neat centralised vacuum cleaning.

The system itself can be controlled by system control panels that operate both the vacuum producers and cleaning of the filter. A variety of other control functions can be installed as required and intelligent features can be included, such as the control of the motor speed according to the number of users – thereby reducing energy consumption.

One of our customers, who we had built a centralised vacuum cleaning system for, noted: "The system created a better working environment; technicians and operators no longer risk falling over mobile vacuum units and electric cables, the air is cleaner, their jobs are that bit easier and also the environment they are now working in is a lot healthier and tidier, which has ultimately improved morale."

With 2022 marking 50 years of our business, we strive for best practice and higher than minimum standards. Whether or not companies engage with us, the important thing is that for the sake of workers' long-term health, steps are taken to ensure dust is not a prolonged issue. The severity of the potential consequences of not doing so, cannot be understated.