Workers need PPE to protect against all kinds of hazards. Of course, your employees probably don’t need protection against pigeon poop. But since you never know…
A visitor to Safety.BLR.com recently posed an intriguing question in our “Ask the Expert” feature. It went like this:
City employees need to access a confined space in a pedestrian bridge to work on an electrical conduit. Pigeons have gotten into this space, leaving feces and other debris. What PPE should these employees be provided?
Our high-flying experts informed the questioner that pigeon droppings can expose workers to serious conditions, including histoplasmosis and cryptococcosis. Citing a NIOSH publication, they noted that disposable protective clothing and shoe coverings should be worn whenever regular work clothing and shoes might be contaminated with dust-containing, disease-carrying spores. Wearing such clothing can reduce or eliminate the likelihood of transferring spore-contaminated dust to places away from work, like a car or one’s home.
When spore-contaminated material is likely to fall from overhead, NIOSH recommends that workers wear disposable protecting clothing with hoods. They should also use disposable shoe coverings with ridged soles made of slip-resistant material to reduce the likelihood of slipping on wet or dusty surfaces.
Great news! BLR’s renowned Safety.BLR.com® website now has even more time-saving features. Take our no-cost site tour! Or better yet, try it at no cost or obligation for a full 2 weeks.
After working in such an environment and before removing respirators, personnel should remove all protective clothing and shoe coverings and seal them in heavy-duty plastic bags for disposal in a landfill.
Using the proper PPE to tackle pigeon poop in a confined space can impede essential sweat evaporation. NIOSH recommends taking precautions to control heat stress in these situations. For example, when protective clothing is needed, wearing a lightweight, cotton coverall would create less of a heat-stress risk than wearing a chemical-resistant suit. Workers should know the symptoms of heat-stress-related conditions and be able to take measures before serious problems develop.
Your one-stop safety management resource, available 24/7. Go here to take a no-cost site tour or here to try it in your own office!
Keep Up With All the News
Whether it’s information about cleaning up pigeon poop or information about more mainstream workplace safety and health concerns, you’ll find it all reported and interpreted for you by our safety experts at Safety.BLR.com.
What’s more, this one-stop safety website is a fantastic resource for safety training materials on just about any topic you can imagine.
Training responsibilities become a snap with the website’s thousands of audio presentations, PowerPoints, prewritten safety meetings, toolbox talks, trainer’s guides, and much, much more. You’ll find training tools on more than 120 safety topics along with plain-English compliance analysis and other resources.
At a time when budget considerations are paramount, what makes more sense than an all-in-one safety training and compliance solution?
And BLR has revamped Safety.BLR.com to meet your needs even better. You’ll be amazed by all the features and functionality of the site. Highlights include:
- Side-by-Side State/Federal Compliance. By placing our state and federal regulatory analysis side by side, you easily see how to fully comply with both governmental entities.
- MSDS Library Expansion. The site now provides an immense library of 3.5 million MSDS forms, with about 10,000 more added or changed every week. Need one? Just call up the chemical by name, manufacturer, product group, or CAS number, then print it out.
- Newsletter Wizard. If you’ve ever wanted to publish a safety newsletter but felt lacking in editorial skills, this new addition is for you.
- Plan Builder. Select from our library of safety plans, customize them to suit your company’s needs, and assemble them into collections you can save in our personal library.
We’re pretty excited about Safety.BLR.com and all of its enhancements, and we’re eager for you to experience it, too. That’s why we’ve created a complimentary site tour, available here. It takes just 5 minutes.
If you like what you see, you’re invited to try the site at no cost and with no obligation. We’ll even give you a complimentary special report for doing so. Go here to take a 5-minute tour of Safety.BLR.com. It may be just what you’re looking for.
PingBack from http://topsy.com/safetydailyadvisor.blr.com/archive/2010/11/16/ppe_employees_safety_health.aspx?utm_source=pingback&utm_campaign=L2