Rough or porous surfaces like concrete or carpeting pose problems, he says. And after a sample is collected, what to make of it is an employer's best guess. Whatever they were comfortable with. But complying with numbers should not be the point, says Klingner, whose company, CLI Laboratories, manufactures colorimetric surface sampling pads now being used in some OSHA inspections. We don't need exact numbers, we need exposure reduction.
Statistics indeed indicate that dermal exposures are getting out of hand.
Occupational skin diseases, mostly in the form of allergic and irritant contact dermatitis, are the second most common type of occupational disease in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The PEL standard doesn't mandate air monitoring, after all. But there's no better way than air sampling for employers with hazardous processes to check their own compliance with the PELs. But even chemicals without skin notations could be candidates for surface sampling. You might also consider searching OSHA's Computer-ized Information System which lists substances with a potential for ingestion toxicity, skin absorption, or a hazardous effect on skin.