Work processes
A vast area of the region is covered by the stone mines. Stone cutting is done in the mining area and the stones are taken to the crushing plant by truck. The first stage is stone crushing, with stone blocks being manually fed through the hopper to a jaw crusher. The crushed stones are carried through a conveyor belt to the rotary grinder for grinding. The ground materials are then taken to an elevated level by air lifting to a bag filter and finally sieved accord- ing to the size of quartz required. The different grades of quartz powder manufactured depend upon the demand for the product. The quartz powder size is usually between 1.52 mm and 3.04 mm or 3.04 mm and 6.08 mm. The quartz powder is also passed through a magnetic separator in order to remove the extraneous ferrous material from the product raw material. Finally, the quartz powder is put into the bag manually and the quartz bags are trans- ported to the consumers. In some cases, quartz pow- der is stored in heaps and/or bags in the warehouse for subsequent transfer to the consumers.
Work conditions
During the manufacturing process, it was observed that a large amount of airborne dust is generated in each of these operations. On some oc- casions, the normal visibility was greatly reduced by the presence of high amounts of airborne dust in the work environment. Workers were using cloth pieces to prevent the inhalation of dust. No personal pro- tective equipment was provided to the workers. In a number of manufacturing enterprises, women workers come to the workplace with their infants who, along with their mothers, are equally exposed to the dust. However, workers might not be exposed to a dusty atmosphere for more than four hours in a shift.
Due to poor cleanliness and housekeeping, the ac- cumulation of dust deposited on all parts of the ˉat surfaces of machines as well as on the shop ˉoor has been observed. Stone crushers are generally located outside the shed in the open atmosphere. Dust generated by the stone crusher and various op- erations in the units gets dispersed into the sur- roundings and carried away from the workplace by the wind, thereby creating hazards to health as well as nuisance to the people living near the manufac- turing industry (Rajasthan Patrika, 1992; Chakraborty and Fulekar, 1992).
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