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During an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspection, the inspector will ask to see a lot of written materials, including any records you have of training that has been provided to employees. If you don’t have the records—or if something is missing—OSHA is likely to cite you not for missing records but for failing […]
Workers have been trained to rely on chemical labels and safety data sheets (SDSs) for chemical hazard information—and rightly so, most of the time. However, some chemical hazards don’t come neatly packaged and labeled. That doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Yesterday, we looked at the hazards of vehicle exhaust and flammable vapors. Here are […]
Welding has a lot of hazards, but they’re not all directly related to the welding equipment or process. California’s Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (CA-FACE) program recently investigated an incident in which a welder was killed while performing a leak test after completing a welding repair. All welders can learn some valuable lessons from his […]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed what it calls the Hazardous Waste Generator Improvements on September 25, 2015. An extended comment period closed December 24, 2015. The Agency has received over 230 comments on the proposal. The Advisor reviewed a number of them and will give you the gist of what people are saying […]
OSHA has updated its voluntary Safety and Health Management Program guidelines. They’re not yet finalized; OSHA is accepting public comment on the revisions until February 15. Among the proposed revisions are new sections on program evaluation and multiemployer workplaces. A summary of the proposed changes is below. New Focus Areas for SHMP According to OSHA, […]
When workers will be de-energizing electrical equipment so that they can safely work on or near it, they must use lockout/tagout procedures to protect themselves from unexpected energization or startup of the equipment. But not all of OSHA’s applicable requirements are in one place. Most lockout/tagout requirements are found in 29 CFR 1910.147, however, a […]
In November 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) amended the Pesticide Worker Protection Standard (WPS). Yesterday we covered a number of key changes to the WPS—age limits, hazard communication, notification, entry restrictions, application suspension, PPE, and decontamination supplies. Today we will review the new training requirements for workers and handlers—what some people in the […]
Large quantity generators (LQGs) of hazardous waste and hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) are required to submit hazardous waste reports (aka, biennial reports) by March 1 this year. Today we will review some details of just who is required to submit this report and common hazardous wastes that are subject to reporting. […]
Whenever you put workers in an air-purifying respirator, it’s vital to know when they need to change their cartridges. Until passive visual end-of-service-life indicators become standard—something that has been a long time coming—employers must calculate, based on employee exposures and workplace factors, just how long a cartridge remains useful. There are a number of computer-based […]
Laboratory workers may know that they need to be careful about the chemical and biological hazards they work with, but do they know that the tools they use to work with these substances can also put them at risk of injury? Here’s what you can do to protect workers from the physical and safety hazards […]