Hello, I am looking to analyse the levels of dust in our Bureau printing room, that uses toner based laser printers, there has been some concerns from the staff in the area that they are unsure of the levels of escaping toner dusts when replacing them etc.. i have been looking online for some passive samples designed for measuring the levels of dust to no avail...any ideas/ website you know of ? we can go down the route of outside consultants...but very expensive for something we believe to be ok, but would like to obtain some tests to ` put minds at rest` so to speak. Staff do use dust masks / gloves etc when changing cartridges , for the intial dust escapes. Thanks in advance Andy

pato1969, if you've looked at the SKC site then you will have seen by now that there is no 'passive' sampling system for dust. The expensive to buy hand held real time monitors will tell you what level of particulate is in the air at any one time but the results have to be approached with caution. However you can hire one of these items and scanning the work zone take a reading every 15 secs to show what sort of peak is produced and how quickly the concentration dies away. Monitoring from before the task commences will show what the background is and, in the absence of any other activity, increased particulate levels should be solely due to the toner cartridge change. The plot can then be used to provide an 'average' concentration over the sampling period. The alternative is to employ a consultant to carry out an 8 hr area pumped sample for gravimetric analysis (again assuming all particulate is from the toner) while logging the number of changes taking place during that period (easy job, ask for quotes). I predict that you will find that even if an employee were in the room for 16 hrs a day they wouldn't approach 1/10 of the WEL and that your current precautions are adequate