I'm fortunate to practice industrial hygiene for an employer with millions of square feet of space, the most aggressive modernization plan in decades, and a talented group of leaders, facility managers, engineers, technicians, and ES&H professionals.
Look at any company that operates a fleet of trucks and ask whether it pays attention to safety. Chances are good you'll find four basic elements in its program: equipment maintenance, hiring policies, training, and holding people accountable for accidents. But often missing is a fifth element that can make all the difference in accident rates: ensuring that drivers are motivated to operate safely.
Tim Pope was immediately intrigued when he first saw the hearing protection device because it was unlike any ear plug or muff he'd ever seen. Pope, vice president and owner of rapidly growing tree service company Terry Tree Service, LLC, then saw the company's claims for the product — comfortable, totally passive hearing protection that allows conversation during use — and just had to try them.
They're the front lines and the heart of the nation's defense against the H1N1 flu, and the care they provide will be vital during the 2009/2010 U.S. flu season. How well the employees of about 5,000 hospitals can perform their duties may depend on those individuals' willingness to receive flu vaccinations, as health care professional associations and leaders of this year's Joint Commission Resources Flu Vaccination Challenge 2009-2010 strongly encourage.
Editor's note: Disaster readiness (DR) involves securing and safeguarding all corporate assets — employees, principally, but also data, facilities, and equipment. John Humphreys ([email protected]), senior director of Citrix's Virtualization and Management Division in Boston, Mass., said organizations are learning how virtualization can ensure their data centers are safe and remain operational in the event of a disaster. Humphreys discussed how this works in the following June 23, 2009, interview with OH&S Editor Jerry Laws.
The Globally Harmonized System, or GHS, was proposed by the United Nations in an effort to internationally standardize classification and labeling of chemicals through the use of pictograms, signal words, and hazard warnings. Benefits of the GHS include reduced time and costs involved in meeting multiple regulations for labels, improved comprehension and understanding of health and environmental hazards, facilitation of trade by removing barriers created by various health and safety requirements, and reduction of duplicate testing.
Every day, an estimated 1,200 eye injuries occur in the workplace, and about 120,000 of these injuries per year are disabling. Thousands of people are blinded each year from work-related eye injuries that could have been prevented with the proper selection and use of eye and face protection.
Since its start in 1913 as the National Council for Industrial Safety, the National Safety Council has weathered its share of storms. In 1941, it answered the call from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to "mobilize its nationwide resources in leading a concerted and intensified campaign against accidents, and to call upon every citizen, in public or private capacity, to enlist in this campaign and do his part in preventing wastage of human and material resources of the nation through accidents."
The path to floor safety is often obstructed by procedures
and ideas that tend to focus on the overall safety
program of a facility, with floor safety being only
one component of that safety program.
A chemical emitted from an individual site and the effect of that release — on not only the emitting site, but also on neighboring sites and nearby communities — are of concern to plant personnel, community leaders, and regulators.
It is generally accepted that around 80 to 85 percent of workplace "accidents" are traceable to some specific human behavior, either at the time of the accident or preceding it. Therefore, to achieve improvement, it is necessary to understand the root cause(s) of the unsafe behavior taking place and how that behavior can be replaced by new, safe behavior.
As a certified First Aid/CPR/AED instructor, I've trained many, many people during the past few years. I've learned a great deal from those I've trained, as well. As a certified EMT—Intermediate and former first responder for the local fire department, I've assisted in some cardiac emergencies and have learned a lot there, too.
Workplace safety is a major concern of every employer — more now than ever before. Through the years, stringent regulation and an ever-growing concern for the health and well-being of employees have brought advancements in processes, safety procedures, and first aid protocols to treat the injured. This movement has had a profound impact on emergency equipment, including eye irrigation and personal hydration.
Hazmat teams at fire departments, industrial companies, and military units have enough to worry about in hazardous situations without having to be concerned about whether their hazmat suits fully protect them. In an effort to help hazmat professionals ensure their teams are fully protected, below are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about chemical protective suit standards.
I received a call recently from a large electric utility. A line worker, we'll call him Bill, had been badly burned while performing work near a 69kV piece of equipment. This incident illustrates several issues that a safety professional or engineer must consider in development of an electrical safety training and PPE program, two of which are not directly addressed in regulations or the consensus standards.
The construction industry expanded at an exponential rate in recent years, not only in countries such as the United States, but also in emerging mega-economies such as China. The UAE experienced a construction boom in the past few decades. But as the global economy faces recession, construction has become stunted in many areas around the world.
Pause for a moment to take a few deep breaths. Inhale, exhale, and repeat. For something we do continuously, it's strange how seldom we actually think about breathing. In fact, beyond activities such as meditation and exercise, we're rarely conscious of breathing, simply because it's an automatic process.