Safe Work Launch Airborne Contaminants Hub
Safe Work Australia has released an online airborne contaminants hub to help employers understand their WHS duties to protect workers from exposure and comply with workplace exposure limits.
WHS laws require (PCBUs) (employers) to ensure workers and others are not exposed to risks from airborne contaminants. This means that PCBUs must eliminate the risks from airborne contaminants if it is reasonably practicable to do so. If it isn’t reasonably practicable to eliminate the risk, PCBUs must minimise the risk of the airborne contaminants so far as is reasonably practicable.
PCBUs must ensure that no person at the workplace is exposed to a substance or mixture in an airborne concentration that exceeds the workplace exposure standard for that substance or mixture.
Following a review, WHS ministers agreed to new workplace exposure limits. From 1 December 2026, airborne contaminants must not exceed the workplace exposure limits for airborne contaminants. Until then, PCBUs must still comply with the workplace exposure standards.
The changes to limits are a result of evidence that has emerged since the last comprehensive review in 2003. Health-based recommendations were made by experts and released for public feedback. Safe Work Australia received more than 1,100 submissions to the review to inform the new limits.
The Safe Work hub provides practical information to help employers and workers:
- recognise what airborne contaminants are and how they can impact health
- understand their WHS duties and how to manage risks from airborne contaminants,
- learn about workplace exposure limits, and what they need to do to prepare for the changes on 1 December 2026.
Visit the new hub for easy-to-use resources, including downloadable infographics, information on what you should be doing in your workplace, and a comparative table of changes coming to workplace exposure limits.
