If you think your facility doesn’t have to worry about having a combustible dust collection system on site, then you may want to think again. Here are just a few reasons why your company may very well need down draft tables.

A ton of different materials can produce combustible dust. For example, foods (candy, flour, spices), metals (aluminum, iron, magnesium), coal, dyes, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, rubber, pulp, paper, wood, plastics, and tobacco can all produce combustible dust.

A variety of different applications can produce combustible dust. Welding, cutting, and brazing, for example, are all hazardous activities in and of themselves that can produce combustible dust.

A combustible dust incident can prove to be catastrophic. Explosions that result from combustible dust are not small. The force of such an explosion can cause fatalities, injuries, and property destruction. Take what happened in 2010 for instance. A titanium dust explosion in West Virginia claimed the lives of three workers. Or take a look at what happened in 2008. A sugar dust explosion in Georgia killed 14 workers.

It happens more than you might think. These explosions are uncommon, but they’re not rare in the least. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has identified 281 combustible dust incidents that have happened between 1980 and 2005, and led to the deaths of 119 workers, the injuries of 718 workers, and a staggering amount of property destruction.

Industrial dust collection systems are far, far more important than you might think. If your facility does not have one, your crew is at risk. Combustible dust can come from a myriad of different materials, as the result of a wide range of different applications, and prove to cause catastrophic incidents.

If you have any questions about the benefits of having a dust collection system on site, feel free to share in the comments.