How bad is fireproof retardant spray for you?

Question

I'm a scaffolder and today I had to take down a scaffold covered with fireproof retartant spray. It's that stuff they spray in buildings for they won't catch on fire. After a while it gets dry and basically is fireproof dust. We work really fast so that **** was everywhere, I even had to get in 10 ft ditch filled with fireproof dust, you could barely see me.( it was in a elevator shaft) My coworkers and I atleast inhailed that **** for 5 hours.

Tony RB · Accepted Answer

Tell your employer you need dust masks because the fire retardant is shedding dust and you are breathing it.

The employer is required by OSHA to provide masks that are designed to block that dust.

If the fire retardant contains silica (which cannot burn) you could get silicosis.

Wikipedia article about silicosis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis

Wikipedia also has a short article listing other Occupational Lung Diseases :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_lung_disease

As the building owners probably don't know, and as I don't know what kind of materials are present in that fire retardant, I can only give you these other pages on Wikipedia :

List of fire-retardant materials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-retardant_material

Fire retardant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_retardant

Flame retardant :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant
information does not seem useful in your situation

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How bad is fireproof retardant spray for you?

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