EU campaign promotes effective carcinogen management
Open-access content
Tuesday 1st May 2018
From the archive: Just so you know, this article is more than 5 years old.
Workplace exposure to carcinogens alone is costing the EU economy €2.4bn (£2.1bn) in lost productivity due to worker absence and ill-health, it said. The European Commission has recently proposed to limit workers' exposure to five cancer-causing chemicals, in addition to the 21 substances that have already been limited or proposed to be limited.
With nearly two-fifths (38%) of European businesses reporting potentially dangerous chemical and biological substances in their workplaces, the 2018-2019 EU-wide "Healthy Workplaces Manage Dangerous Substances" campaign aims to promote measures for their proper management.
EU-OSHA's new multilingual website contains hundreds of materials to support the new campaign. They include factsheets on asbestos, construction dust, exhaust fumes, flour dust, chemicals, nanomaterials, tobacco smoke exposure and more.
Its collection of practical tools and case studies focuses on risk assessment, elimination and substitution of dangerous substances, and also aims to increase awareness of developments in policy and legislation.
IOSH's No Time to Lose campaign, the fourth phase of which was launched on 9 April, is listed under the website's "practical tools and guidance" tab.
Furthermore, employers can access a personalised to-do checklist, relevant legislation and recommendations for good practice by completing a chemical products questionnaire.
Dangerous substances are most prevalent in sectors such as construction, manufacturing and agriculture. However, workers in all sectors could be exposed, putting them at risk of developing acute and long-term health issues such as occupational cancers, respiratory diseases, inner organ damage and skin irritation and diseases.
Dr Christa Sedlatschek, EU-OSHA's director, said: "Many workers are unaware that not only manufactured chemical products that are labelled with risk and safety information can cause harm. Other commonly used substances across all sectors -- from working with flour in bakeries to silica dust on construction sites -- can be hazardous if their use is not managed effectively.
"Therefore, our campaign raises awareness of all types of dangerous substances, not just the obvious ones, and emphasises the importance of risk assessment in all sectors as the first step towards prevention."
Recruitment Advisor is a recruitment and employment review website that provides workers with information about recruitment agencies and workers’ rights when they are looking for a job abroad. More than 10,000 recruitment agencies in Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea are listed on the website, which is currently available in English, Indonesian, Nepali and Tagalog.
Jim Collins’ team studied 6,000 journal articles and generated more than 2,000 pages of interview transcripts in a five-year project as they researched the 1,435 largest US companies. From these they identified 11 that had excelled.
In a letter sent to offshore oil and gas production operators in the region, Chris Flint, the director of the HSE’s energy division, has urged industry senior leaders to assess their operations and to reflect on the learning from incidents across the process industries to identify where improvements can be made. Flint has asked operators to respond to him by 20 July stating what measures they either have or will introduce to improve their safety management systems on the areas of process safety leadership, as well as assurance, audit and review.
The injured fitter was working for HPAS (which trades as Safestyle UK) as part of a team of five operatives carrying out a full window and door replacement job at a house in Doncaster, Yorkshire, on 1 March 2017.As the fitter was carrying a window frame up to the first-floor rear bedroom window, his ladder slipped from under him and he fell more than 3 m. He broke a knee cap which required surgery, Sheffield Magistrates’ Court was told.
It has proposed to include new exposure limit values for five chemicals in the Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive (CMD). These are: cadmium and its inorganic compounds; beryllium and inorganic beryllium compounds; arsenic acid and its salts, as well as inorganic arsenic compounds; formaldehyde; and 4,4’-methylene-bis(2-chloroaniline). The first three carcinogens are used extensively in sectors such as nickel-cadmium battery manufacture, mechanical plating, zinc and copper smelting, foundries, electronics, chemicals, construction, plastics and recycling.
Hammersmith, London-based contactor PVAD was extending a basement at a site in Montholme Road near Wandsworth Common, south London, when the HSE visited in March 2017 and identified serious breaches.There was no edge protection in several areas, including at the site entrance where workers could fall 4 m into the basement. The contractor had also installed unsafe “home-made” ramps.The inspector found the site lavatory did not have a cistern to flush and washing facilities consisted of a cold water outdoor tap and bucket, with no soap or towel.