Restrictive environmental legislation and a greater awareness of health hazards were the main reasons for development of vacuum blasting equipment. The advantages of the equipment are not limited to preventing environmental and health problems, in many applications it is also a fully justified method of surface preparation on an economic basis.

Disposal costs of hazardous waste is minimal by the use of recyclable abrasives, so the amount of abrasives used is much lower than compared with open-blasting. The equipment has many applications. Besides for construction and maintenance of ships, the equipment can also be used for the maintenance of bridges, machinery, power plants or for the renovation of concrete. The machine therefore is commonly found in steel, shipbuilding, offshore and petro-chemical industries apart from other places.