Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
From May 2–6, OSHA will hold its third annual Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction. The event, which reached some 4 million employees in 2014 and 2015, most in construction, is intended to raise awareness of preventing fall hazards, which accounted for 337 of the 874 preventable construction fatalities recorded in 2014. Keep reading to […]
On March 25, 2016, OSHA published its final rule on Occupational Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica. Since 1971, crystalline silica exposures have been subject to a permissible exposure limit found in 29 CFR 1910.1000, Table Z-3; the new rule establishes a substance-specific standard for crystalline silica. Substance-specific standards include extensive compliance requirements not found in […]
In OSHA’s 1989 Safety and Health Management Program Guidelines, “Management commitment and employee involvement” were a single major element. In its proposed revisions, OSHA has broken out “worker participation” into its own section and greatly expanded it. In the new section, OSHA has targeted two common employer practices— incentive programs and postincident drug testing—as having […]
Consistent with President Obama’s June 2013 Climate Action Plan, the EPA is using its Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) to propose restrictions on the end uses of certain hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), approve new alternatives to substances with high global warming potential (GWP), and change the status of other substances already on the SNAP list.
As part of their Clean Air Act (CAA) responsibilities to implement the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), state and local air agencies must monitor for the presence of NAAQS pollutants (formally, criteria air pollutants) in the ambient air and report the monitored data to the EPA. The relevant regulations at 40 CFR Part 58 […]
Q. What EPA Hazardous Waste Number should be assigned on the Hazardous Waste Manifest when shipping for disposal un-punctured, aerosol cans with carbon dioxide propellant that are assumed to be empty of the product they were intended to spray (e.g. paint)?
Taking enforcement action against violating small community water systems (SCWSs) can be a complete waste of time, which makes it clear that other approaches are needed to bring the thousands of such systems into compliance with their Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) obligations.
It would be reasonable to think that when hazardous waste is produced that there is only one hazardous waste generator, given the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) definition, which states that “Generator means any person, by site, whose act or process produces hazardous waste identified or listed in [40 CFR 261] or whose act first […]
In 1989, OSHA published a guidance document to aid employers in creating an effective umbrella program encompassing all of its safety and health management activities. OSHA issued a draft update of these guidelines in November 2015, for public comment. The comment period closed in February, and OSHA is poised to issue its updated guidelines.
Get a group of EHS professionals together and the subject of hazardous materials (hazmat) training will invariably come up. What does the Department of Transportation (DOT) expect? How can you be sure that your training is effective and compliant with the DOT Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMRs)? Today we offer steps for developing a training program […]