Technical Guidance Note SW01 - Fume Minimisation Guidelines: Welding, Cutting, Brazing & Soldering (2024)

This Technical Guidance Note provides weld fume control guidelines, originally produced as part of a research project of the Cooperative Research Centre for Materials Welding and Joining in 1997. The aim of the research was to establish which processes generated fume at levels which would need to be controlled to comply with the requirements of what is now the national Code of practice – Managing the risks of hazardous chemicals, and to provide advice on the control measures which could be introduced to achieve this.

This third edition of the Fume Minimisation Guidelines includes comment from the International Institute of Welding’s Commission VIII Health, Safety & Environment on the 2017 ruling from IARC (an agency of the World Health Organisation) in relation to welding fume being reclassified from Group 2B Possibly Carcinogenic to Humans to Group 1 Carcinogenic to Humans.