Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Machines are incredibly useful tools. But, like all tools, they must be used safely to prevent injury. Train employees to operate machinery safely and prevent machine accidents. The list of possible machinery-related injuries is long and bloody. It includes severed fingers, crushed hands, amputated arms, severe cuts, and other damage too horrible to mention. Sometimes […]
Keep machine operators safe by making sure that no machine is operated unless guards and safety devices are in place and working properly. According to OSHA’s machine guarding standards (29 CFR 1910.211-219), machine guards must meet six requirements. They must: Prevent contact of hands, arms, or any other part of a worker’s body with dangerous […]
There are nearly 5 million permit-required confined spaces in workplaces across America and another 1 million nonpermit spaces. The three essential safety elements in those spaces are training, testing, and rescue preparedness. Confined space accidents happen more often than you might think. And the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) says that these […]
Safety concerns don’t stop when your employees leave the workplace. Whether they get injured at home or on the job, you still face lost workdays and health insurance costs. So encourage home safety, too, by giving safety training on one of the top causes of accidental death and injury off the job—falls. Employees can fall-proof […]
According to safety consultant Emmitt Nelson, when everyone is on board with a zero-injury approach, the high costs of worker injury can be reduced to sums that previously existed “only in the dreams” of safety professionals. Emmitt Nelson is a safety consultant (www.nelsonconsulting.com) and pioneer of the zero-accident approach. He chaired the first Construction Industry […]
Read about how one Fortune 100 company set and achieved a goal to reduce the number and severity of workplace injuries by 50 percent in 5 years. The program was so successful, the company is already into its second 5-year challenge. Anyone who thinks changing safety direction and outcomes at a large company is impossible […]
Fires. Explosions. Massive chemical releases. The worst nightmare of any company that works with highly hazardous substances is the kind of catastrophe in which employees are injured or killed, and the facility is badly damaged or destroyed. Process safety management is a framework for managing the serious risks associated with processes that involve highly hazardous […]
Failure to comply with process safety management requirements can lead to catastrophic incidents in which employees are injured or killed, the public is threatened, facilities are damaged, and OSHA is on your case. Since last summer, facilities where accidental release of highly hazardous chemicals could result in toxic discharges, fires, or explosions have been the […]
Many employees may not be motivated to attend training even if—or especially if—it’s mandatory. Part of a trainer’s job, therefore, is to motivate your workers to not only attend, but to be engaged enough to pay attention and want to learn or review vital safety precautions and procedures. How do you accomplish this? Talk safety […]
Forklift accidents can happen in so many different ways that you have to anticipate all the possibilities—even the kinds of accident scenarios that common sense would dictate should never happen Parking and securing a forklift when not in use is a simple enough thing—something trainers might not emphasize much because it seems like such a […]