PELs

Many of the PELs listed by OSHA are outdated and inadequate for ensuring the protection of worker health. Most PELs were issued shortly after adoption of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act in 1970 and have not been updated since that time.

Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs) have been established by a number of organizations to supplement the permissible exposure limits listed by OSHA. Many of these occupational exposure limits have been adopted by OSHA. To provide employers and employees with an alternate list of OELs, OSHA created the annotated Z-Tables that provide additional OELs from California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health, the National Institute for Occupational Safety, and Health and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists.

Cal/OSHA has established an extensive list of PELs, more than any other OSHA-approved state plan. This list provides information on acceptable levels of chemicals in the workplace. For this course it is important to know that the Cal/OSHA permissible exposure limit for cadmium is 5 micrograms of cadmium per cubic meter of air as an 8-hour TWA.

To learn more about Cadmium Safety visit our Cadmium Safety Online Training web page.