The noise exposure of workers of the footwear industry

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the noise exposure of workers of the footwear industry. Four footwear manufacturing companies of northern Portugal took part in this work. The assessment of the noise was made with a Bruel & Kjaer sonometer. Equivalent continuous A-weighted sound level, L-Aeq,L- T, and the C-weighted peak sound pressure level, L-Cpeak were recorded. Quantification of sound level exposure comprised 248 measurements. 22.6% of these measurements were above the Lower Action Value (LAV) and 11.7% above the Upper Action Value (UAV) for the daily noise exposure level. According to Directive 2003/10/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council when these values are exceeded the adoption of preventive measures is required to reduce the risk to the health and safety of the worker. The sites or sections of the plant identified with the higher sound levels were the sewing, assembly and finishing sections.