Tag: construction

What Happens When You Don’t Protect Your Workers from Lead Exposure

A company in Waverly, Ohio, was recently fined over $56,000 for violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) lead standard concerning exposure monitoring and the use of personal protective equipment. Today we will review the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for lead, take a look at what happened in this particular case, and urge […]

Can Employers Use NESC to Select FR Clothing? OSHA Weighs in

In April 2014, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) revised its Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution rule (29 CFR 1910.269). The revised rule includes new requirements for estimating the heat energy that workers might be exposed to in the event of an electric arc, and how to select appropriate personal protective equipment based on […]

Webinar Wrap-Up: Tips for Cost-Effective Used Oil Management

Compliance with the used oil management regulations has always posed challenges to generators of used oil—from understanding the applicability of the regulations to identifying any cost-saving opportunities. In a recent webinar titled Used Oil Generators: Cost-Effective Strategies to Stay Compliant with EPA Regulations, speaker David J. Scriven-Young, senior counsel of primarily environmental law, construction, and […]

Safer Chemical Management: Can OSHA Regulate Exposures Without PELs?

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has published permissible exposure limits (PELs) for about 500 chemicals—and most of those PELs have not been updated since 1971. In the intervening four 4 decades, the number of chemicals used in the United States has exploded and, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxic Substances Control […]

Safer Chemical Management: Is OSHA Trying an End-Run Around PELs?

With just a few exceptions, OSHA’s permissible exposure limits (PELs) have not been updated since they were adopted in 1971. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) attempt at a mass update in 1989 was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court, and attempts to establish PELs for newly-recognized chemical hazards have largely been hamstrung in […]

Do Your Employees Know How to Prevent Chemical Exposure?

This is Thanksgiving week and as environment, health, and safety (EHS) professionals, we all want to make sure employees are at home celebrating with their families and not at the hospital, or worse, because of an inadvertent exposure to chemicals on the job. Yesterday we offered three tips for preventing chemical exposure in the workplace […]

3 Tips for Preventing Employee Chemical Exposure at the Source

This is Thanksgiving week and as environment, health, and safety (EHS) professionals, we all want to make sure employees are at home celebrating with their families and not at the hospital, or worse, because of an inadvertent exposure to chemicals on the job. Today we offer three tips for preventing chemical exposure in the workplace […]

Five Essential Elements of a Total Worker Health Program

Each year in the United States, about 4,500 workers die from work-related injuries, and more than 50,000 die from work-related illnesses. More than 3 million suffer nonfatal occupational injuries or illnesses; 2.8 million are treated in the emergency department; and 140,000 are hospitalized. The price tag to employers reaches $250 billion each year. Although employers […]