Occupational safety and health

“ Members should have regard to the need for international cooperation in the continuous promotion of activity related to occupational safety and health protection and prevention of occupational accidents. ”

“ Safety, Health and Welfare The Industrial Health Division of the Labour Department acts as an advisory service to government and industry on matters relating to the health of workers. Essentially, the work of the division is concerned with preventing occupational disease and protecting workers against health hazards in their working environment. Hazards to the health of workers are reported by the statutory notification of occupational disease, by the factory inspectorate or by officers of the division. ”

“ Respiratory protection is used to reduce worker exposures to acceptable levels in the absence of effective engineering controls, during the installation or maintenance of engineering controls, for short-duration tasks that make engineering controls impractical, and during emergencies. The decision to use respiratory protection should be based upon professional judgment, hazard assessment, and risk management practices to keep worker inhalation exposures below an internal control or an exposure limit. ”

“ Inadequate and poorly enforced occupational health and safety laws and regulations continued to put workers' health and lives at risk. The State Administration for Work Safety (SAWS) sets and enforces occupational health and safety regulations. The work safety law states that employees have the right, after finding an emergency situation that threatens their personal safety, to evacuate the workplace. Employers are forbidden to cancel the labor contracts or reduce the wages or benefits of any employee who takes such action. ”

“ Section 5 imposes a duty on the person responsible for a workplace to take steps to reduce any risk identified by him.
7. Section 6 imposes a duty on the person responsible for a workplace to inform users of the findings of the risk assessment and the actions he has taken after the assessment.
8. Section 7 requires the person responsible for a workplace to ensure that the workstations are suitable having regard to the safety, health and welfare of users.
9. Section 8 requires an employer to ensure that a user has been provided with adequate safety and health training. ”

“ Although worker safety and health continued to improve, serious problems remained, particularly in the construction industry. In the first quarter of the year, the Labor Department reported 8,512 occupational injuries, including 2,842 classified as industrial accidents. ”

“ Respirators in the workplace should be used as part of a comprehensive respiratory protection program. The program should include written standard operating procedures; workplace monitoring; hazard-based selection ”

“ The occupier of a workplace in which an accident, a dangerous occurrence or an occupational disease occurs shall take all reasonable measures to prevent any person from—
(a) altering, replacing, removing or adding to any machinery, equipment, plant or article which may have contributed to the cause of the accident resulting in the death of any person or the dangerous occurrence or occupational disease ”

“ It is intended to be used as a reference by plant managers and owners who are responsible for making decisions regarding capital allocations, as well as health and safety professionals, engineers, and industrial hygienists who are specifically charged with protecting worker health in this new and growing field. ”

“ Following the hierarchy normally leads to the implementation of inherently safer systems, ones where the risk of illness or injury has been substantially reduced. Designing out hazards early in the design process is a basic tenet of PtD. When PtD is implemented, the control hierarchy is applied by designers and owners/managers to include safety into the process. ”

“ Mention of any company or product does not constitute endorsement by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) . In addition, citations to Web sites external to NIOSH do not constitute NIOSH endorsement of the sponsoring organizations or their programs or products. ”

“ With regard to the workers who are exposed to, or are likely exposed to, an accident of acute occupational disease hazards, the employer shall immediately make arrangements for their rescue and treatment, for health checkups and medical observation. ”

“ The trade union organizations shall urge and assist the employer in publicity and training in occupational health, put forward comments and suggestions about prevention and control occupational diseases in the unit, consult with the employer about the questions on prevention and control of occupational diseases raised by the workers and urge the employer to solve them. ”

“ The preliminary assessment report on the occupational disease hazards shall include the assessment of the occupational hazard factors that the construction project may produce and of the effects that such factors may have on the workplace and the workers' health, the defined category of the hazards and the measures to be taken for prevention of occupational diseases. ”

“ Most accidents and work illnesses can be prevented, often by simple and inexpensive or no-cost measures. Protective equipment, used in many industries to help assure worker safety and health, proves equally useful on farms and ranches if always used when jobs or working conditions call for it. Complex preventive measures are rarely required, and safety and health information is available from many local sources. ”

“ A major advantage of engineering controls is that, when properly designed, they require little or no user effort or training to be effective. Many industries have implemented engineering controls to reduce exposure and risk of disease among their workers. The pharmaceutical industry uses hazardous (i.e., biologically active) liquids and powders that often do not have OELs. To address these hazards, the pharmaceutical industry has adopted a performance-based strategy using exposure control limits. ”

“ Engineering controls protect workers by removing hazardous conditions (e.g., local exhaust ventilation that captures and removes airborne emissions) or placing a barrier between the worker and the hazard (e.g., isolators and machine guards) . Well-designed engineering controls can be highly effective in protecting workers and will typically be passive, that is, independent of worker interactions. It is important to design engineering controls that do not interfere with the productivity and ease of processing for the worker. ”

“ Overall, the published studies suggest that the selection of a fume hood with improved operating characteristics such as a VAV hood provides better operator protection than conventional fume hoods when handling dry nanomaterials. When using any hood, the worker should strive to maintain the face velocity in the recommended range of 80–120 ft/ min [ACGIH 2013] . Additionally, proper use of the engineering control by the operator and validation of the performance of the control equipment are essential for risk mitigation. ”

“ These devices have been used for many years in research laboratories to protect workers from chemical and biological hazards. The design and operation of the fume hood is an important factor when considering good exposure control. Traditional designs for laboratory fume hoods create airflow patterns that form recirculation regions inside the hood. In addition, airflow around the worker, as shown in Figure 9, creates a negative pressure region downstream of the worker, which may provide a mechanism for the transport of materials out of the hood as well as into the breathing zone of the worker. ”

“ Large-scale handling/packaging. When nanomaterials are handled in quantities larger than those that can easily fit in a fume-type hood, a unidirectional flow booth can provide a suitable control to reduce worker exposure and mitigate a potential emission source. These booths are commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry and have also been employed for handling hazardous dye powders in industrial settings. They provide the flexibility for a variety of operations that require handling of nanomaterials from larger containers, such as drums. ”