![]() His workers handle hundreds of pounds of coffee on a daily basis, Fowler says. The diacetyl count there came in well below NIOSH's proposed standards.īut Fowler thinks concerns about workplace well-being should be put in perspective. He spent years perfecting his shop's air flow system and recently called in experts to test it. In Milwaukee, Lincoln Fowler, a co-owner of Colectivo Coffee, says he has established some best practices. In the meantime, some coffee processing plants are taking preliminary precautions. NIOSH - which can't pass regulations on this, but can make recommendations - issued a draft version of guidance for safe exposure in August 2011 and expects to release a final version later this year. While researchers have found strong links between exposure to the chemical and lung disease, they are still trying to work out exactly how much exposure is too much.Ī spokesman from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration says currently, there are no plans to make rules regulating diacetyl exposure in workplaces. "We are looking further, because current science does not indicate any support for the premise that exposure to diacetyl alone - created naturally in the roasting and grinding of unflavored coffee - increases the risk of obstructive lung disease," says Joseph DeRupo, a spokesman for the association. Meanwhile, the National Coffee Association is carrying out its own analysis. Now NIOSH is juggling a dozen requests from roasters around the country who want their facilities assessed, though none of these roasters are reporting diacetyl-related health problems by their employees. "We're circulating air in the facility more," he says, "and bringing fresh air." He's waiting for a final report, but for now he's following NIOSH's advice to take precautions. ![]() The results raised concern and Moon immediately asked NIOSH to dig deeper. In Madison, Moon says he knew nothing about the chemical, but that changed when a Journal Sentinel reporter asked him to allow an industrial hygienist to check his business for the presence of diacetyl. The newspaper's multipart investigation explored the potential that high levels of diacetyl could be causing respiratory illness in workers across the state. And indeed, Bailey says, "We found the highest concentrations in the flavoring room."īut they also found significant levels of diacetyl in the area where the natural, unflavored coffee beans were being processed, "in the grinding and packaging room where they packaged nonflavored coffee."Ī couple of years later, reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel began digging into the issue. This particular coffee roaster in Texas added flavorings to some of its beans. What Bailey and her colleagues found was diacetyl - high levels of it. "Physicians at a nearby university medical center had diagnosed five former workers with a very severe lung disease called obliterative bronchiolitis," says Rachel Bailey, a medical officer at the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Workers at a coffee roasting plant in Texas were getting sick. The issue first caught the attention of investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back in 2012. People at home grinding or brewing up a pot need not worry, but the chemical could pose a danger to people working in commercial coffee roasting plants. Now it looks like that chemical could affect the coffee world as well. You might remember hearing about diacetyl several years ago, when a synthetic version of the chemical, which is used to give a buttery flavor to certain snack foods, was implicated in causing severe lung problems among workers at a microwave popcorn facility. Why are these gases so worrisome? Because they contain a chemical called diacetyl - a natural byproduct of the coffee roasting process that, in large concentrations, can infiltrate the lungs and cause a severe form of lung disease. So it is really grabbing a lot of all of the gases coming off the coffee," he explains. He points to a cooling can that is "designed to draw air from the room over the beans and exhausts that air out of the facility. Moon says he aims to run an efficient and safe plant - and that starts the minute beans spill out of the roaster. Step into Mike Moon's Madison, Wis., coffee roasting plant and the aroma of beans - from Brazil to Laos - immediately washes over you. Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/TNS via Getty Images The glass tube on his vest tests the air in his breathing zone for diacetyl, a chemical byproduct of the coffee roasting process that can cause lung disease. Just Coffee Cooperative's Benjamin Lisser prepares to grind coffee.
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