1.3 Voluntary use, and the dust mask exception

1 The permission, and the condition on it

Paragraph (c)(2)(i): an employer may provide respirators at the request of employees or permit employees to use their own respirators, if the employer determines that such respirator use will not in itself create a hazard.

That determination is a real step, not a formality. A respirator adds breathing resistance and heat load; on a worker with a cardiac or pulmonary condition, or in hot work, the mask itself can be the hazard. The employer has to decide that it is not, before permitting the use.

If the employer determines that voluntary use is permissible, the same paragraph then requires the employer to provide the respirator users with the information contained in appendix D to the section — the document titled Information for Employees Using Respirators When Not Required Under the Standard. Appendix D is short, mandatory to provide, and easy to hand out; there is no excuse for skipping it.

2 The duties that survive voluntary use

Paragraph (c)(2)(ii) is the sentence that surprises people. In addition, the employer must establish and implement those elements of a written respiratory protection program necessary to ensure that any employee using a respirator voluntarily is medically able to use that respirator, and that the respirator is cleaned, stored, and maintained so that its use does not present a health hazard to the user.

So voluntary use is not a free zone. Two program elements follow the respirator wherever it goes: medical ability, and cleaning, storage and maintenance. A shared half mask hanging on a nail in a shop, used voluntarily, fails the second one whether or not anyone was required to wear it.

What does not follow, for voluntary users, is fit testing — paragraph (f)(2) applies to employees using a tight-fitting facepiece where the standard requires it, and the fit test is about achieving a known protection factor, which voluntary use is not claiming.

3 The filtering facepiece exception

Now the exception, stated exactly as the standard states it, at the end of (c)(2)(ii): Exception: Employers are not required to include in a written respiratory protection program those employees whose only use of respirators involves the voluntary use of filtering facepieces (dust masks).

Three conditions are packed in there, and all three must hold. The use must be voluntary. It must be the employee's only use of respirators. And the device must be a filtering facepiece — defined in paragraph (b) as a negative pressure particulate respirator with a filter as an integral part of the facepiece, or with the entire facepiece composed of the filtering medium.

So: a worker who voluntarily wears an N95 and nothing else is outside the written program. The same worker who also wears a half mask for a required task on Tuesdays is inside it, for everything. And a worker who voluntarily wears an elastomeric half mask is inside the (c)(2)(ii) duties even though nobody required it, because a half mask with replaceable cartridges is not a filtering facepiece.

4 Why the line between voluntary and required matters

The distinction decides a lot, and it is decided by the employer's own words and conduct as much as by the exposure data.

Paragraph (c)(1) requires a written program in any workplace where respirators are necessary to protect health, or whenever respirators are required by the employer. Post a sign saying “respirators must be worn in this area” and the use has become required, whatever the sampling shows. That is not a trap; it is consistent. Once the employer requires a respirator, workers rely on it, and everything that makes reliance justified — medical clearance, fit, training, maintenance — has to be there.

The practical advice is to be deliberate. If a task genuinely needs a respirator, say so and run the program. If it does not, and someone wants one anyway, permit it under (c)(2), hand out appendix D, and keep the two categories visibly separate. What causes trouble is drift: a supervisor telling a crew to “wear a mask for that one” and everyone treating it as voluntary.

5 What a voluntary dust mask actually does

Worth being straight with a crew about this, because the reason people ask for a dust mask is comfort with visible dust, and the reason it sometimes matters is different.

A NIOSH-certified filtering facepiece is a real respirator, and a properly worn N95 filters at least 95 percent of the test aerosol. But two things limit what it does in a workplace. Without a fit test, nobody knows what it does on that face — the assigned protection factor of 10 in Table 1 applies to a respirator used within a continuing, effective program, as Note 2 to the table states explicitly. And a filtering facepiece is a particulate respirator: it does nothing at all against a gas or a vapor, and nothing about oxygen.

So a dust mask against nuisance dust on a windy day is a reasonable comfort measure. A dust mask against solvent vapor, or against silica on a task that Table 1 of 1926.1153 says needs APF 10 within a program, is a false sense of protection — which is precisely the harm the appendix D information is written to prevent.

6 Running voluntary use well

Four practical rules keep voluntary use useful rather than a liability.

1. 1
   Make the determination and record it. (c)(2)(i) requires the employer to determine that the use will not in itself create a hazard. Write the determination down for the task, not for the person.
2. 2
   Hand out appendix D with the mask. Physically attach it to the issue point. It is required by both (c)(2)(i) and (k)(6).
3. 3
   Issue filtering facepieces, not shop respirators. Voluntary use of an elastomeric respirator pulls medical ability and cleaning duties in. If you want the exception, the device has to be a filtering facepiece.
4. 4
   Never let voluntary substitute for a control. If people are asking for masks because a process is dusty, the request is telling you the ventilation is inadequate — which is what paragraph (a)(1) wants you to fix.