In-house checks could save 8,000 lives a year
17 Jan 2011
Simon Bull takes the mystery out of monitoring hazardous substances
A recent report by the Health & Safety Executive has found that around 8,000 people are dying each year from occupational cancers and around 14,000 new cases reported each year. Many of these tragedies are caused by hazardous substances at work and, therefore, entirely preventable.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002 provide legislation that must be complied with by all companies throughout the EU. However, to really deal with the problem often means taking action over and above legal requirements.
A good example of this is the Workplace Exposure Limits, which dictate the maximum allowable exposure levels for many dangerous substances. These levels in themselves, however, are not considered necessarily as ’safe’ - just because there is a limit of exposure does not mean people are not going to get ill.
Within the process industries, chemical manufacture and processing is a hot-spot for the use of hazardous substances. According to the HSE, cancer-causing chemicals include:
- Arsenic and related chemicals - glass, metal industries
- Benzene - oil & gas and petroleum
- Beryllium and related chemicals - metal industries
- Chromium pigments - paint production
- Some fertilisers and pesticides
- Various organic solvents - rubber, textiles, paint
Clearly, where such substances are integral to a production process, removal is not possible and so work is needed in such industries to ensure that exposures are reduced as much as possible.
Asbestos is another major issue for the process industries, due to the extensive use of asbestos in many plants in areas such as boilers, pipes, furnaces, heat exchangers, pumps and numerous others.
People often feel that dealing with the regulations and carrying out the necessary in-house monitoring is complex, but this does not need to be the case. They can, for example, start by encouraging education and training for health and safety professionals, as well as for employees.
Training courses that cover the fundamentals of the regulations and monitoring strategies, sampling equipment and personal monitors can give the confidence to tackle any issues in-house.
As far as monitoring is concerned, installing the right equipment to get started needn’t even cost much money, and the process is very straightforward; so long as the procedures are in place, the results will follow.
Personal monitoring for many substances can be carried out using a gas detector and the cost of these in recent years has plummeted, making them accessible as a very effective tool.
Many companies wrongly believe that air-sampling and COSHH compliance is difficult. They just need to embrace this subject with a view to saving lives in the future, especially where the potential hazards are many and varied, such as those often found in the process industries.
