Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Safety is a process, and as such, needs to be managed. This section offers resources to create a viable safety program, sell it to senior management, train supervisors and employees in using it, and then track and report your progress. Look also for ways to advance your own skills in these areas, both for your current job, and those that follow.
Free Special Report: 50 Tips for More Effective Safety Training
Maybe you have to have a safety committee because state law requires you to. Maybe you thought it was a good idea when you started it, but it has never worked out like you hoped. Maybe you poured your efforts into establishing a safety committee, but workers never seemed to trust it fully. What’s keeping […]
Yesterday, we looked at the four categories of employers that OSHA will hold responsible for safety on a multiemployer worksite. Today, we will look in detail at the responsibilities of “controlling employers,” who carry a higher compliance burden than other employers at the site.
How many employers have a presence on your worksite? Do you have two or three contractors renovating your office space, another contractor running your on-site cafeteria, some consultants evaluating your production unit, a medical group doing a wellness screening on-site, and a crew of temporary employees in the warehouse? All of those workers represent different […]
In the first century B.C., the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote about miners using pig bladders to try to protect themselves from hazardous breathing air in the mines. We’ve made some refinements since Pliny’s day—to the point of recognizing that the respirator itself can, under some conditions, be hazardous.
Respirators can be real lifesavers. A firefighter inside a building filled with toxic smoke breathes clean air because of his respirator, as does a painter inside a spray booth. But for workers with underlying heart or lung issues, a respirator can place a dangerous amount of stress on the body. That’s why OSHA’s respiratory protection […]
Do you know what the requirements are for OSHA’s workplace posters? How often do they change? Do they vary from state to state? Can you post them electronically? Where can you get them?
A 48-year-old shipyard welder was welding on a barge that was undergoing renovation, working from an elevating work platform. A pinhole leak developed in the hydraulic lines on the lift, and the escaping hydraulic oil was ignited by sparks from the welding operation. The worker was taken to a burn unit, but later died.
Whether you’re a large, heavy equipment manufacturer with a stable of experienced welders or a small job shop where welding equipment is used infrequently, odds are you use the same type of equipment: a metal inert gas (MIG) welder.
A 26-year-old knitting machine operator needed to make an adjustment to the machine. The machine had interlocks that stopped it when its safety gate was opened—but the interlocks were easily disabled, and the worker simply stuck a needle in the “on” button so that he could open the gates and adjust the machine while it […]
A 52-year-old welder was removing a jammed piece of metal from the hydraulic door of a scrap metal shredder but did not de-energize and lock out the shredder first. He also failed to release the residual hydraulic energy in the system and block the door open.