UKC

With all this hype about particulates, I do love my wood burning stove by the way. I wonder what a lifetime of breathing magnesium carbonate particulates will do to one's health. Just a thought.

I've been at it since 1984, sniffing it in I mean.

Cheers

In reply to Dago theruinmargalef:

The more you sniff the bigger that your testicles get and you climb higher.

In reply to Dago theruinmargalef:

I do however worry about the additives in things like Super Chalk.

Also the super fine chalks (like chalk balls) will be inhaled deeper into the respiratory system than old fashioned chunky block chalk.

In reply to Dago theruinmargalef:

Clearly ruined your ability to form coherent sentences

In reply to Dago theruinmargalef:

The answer of course depends.  As a rule of thumb, if you can see particulates suspended in the air, illuminated by the sun for example these will get lodged in your nose and not get much deeper. The smaller the particle, the deeper it will get into your respiratory tract.  Particles around 5 microns will get all the way to the alveoli.  This is the one of the issues with diesel exhaust, the PM5’.  I’ve no idea what the particle size distribution of chalk dust is, so can’t say more.

In reply to kipper12:

I wondered about this years ago. From memory chalk dust is too large to be absorbed by the lungs and is therefore pretty harmless.

There may be conflicting articles out there but the "no harm" one was the first I read and I was happy with that answer.

In reply to ianstevens:

True. It must have got to me. 

In reply to Dago theruinmargalef: I had never really thought about how dusty and unpleasant most climbing wall are . However when Eden rock in Carlisle reopened after the pandemic they “banned “ the use of chalk , I found the building felt cleaner and a much nicer place to be . I assume other walls did likewise (?) and wonder if any of them asked their users wether or not they would prefer to keep the rule in place ? 

In reply to mike123:

When I went in after they reopened, I bought my first ever bottle of liquid chalk when I signed in. It is so effective I’ve never gone back to using loose or block chalk. I would be happy for ER to reintroduce the ban. I think there is sometimes a problem with people not allowing the liquid chalk to dry properly before climbing. This leaves gunk on the holds but could be managed with information. 
ER is well run wrt changing routes and cleaning holds, but the chalk free times were particularly good.

In reply to Dago theruinmargalef:

HSE show a workplace exposure limit.

Wonder how many walls have considered this

https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/eh40.pdf

In reply to artif:

These are nuisance dust limits, not really based on data on calcium carbonate at all. 

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

Not used liquid chalk but doesn’t it dry and eventually turn to dust?

In reply to annieman:

Whilst your testicles belay you.

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

A a lot of the common brands of liquid chalk contain rosin/colophony/"pof". It was definitely noticeable that holds were becoming sticky with resin when everyone was using it (probably due to misuse and not allowing to dry, but then when do people ever use dry chalk appropriately either)

The other issue is that about 1 in 75 people get a contact allergy to colophony. It's the same stuff that causes people to be allergic to some kinds of plasters.