Going Underground–In Liverpool

Last week The British Occupational Hygiene Society held a joint conference with the Occupational Hygiene Society of Ireland (OHSI) in Liverpool. Exposure Control and Containment 2 (ECCII), was a follow up to the successful event held in Cork two years ago. The Conference was held in the Crowne Plaza Hotel on the waterfront, just a

Health and Safety in Engineering

On Tuesday this week I went down to London to represent BOHS at a reception in the House of Commons held to launch a new document on the business case for health and safety in engineering. It was produced by the Inter-Institutional Group on Health and Safety, an organisation made up of representatives from the

Design and management of controls

I’ll be making a contribution to the BOHS Conference in Cardiff this year, first thing on the Thursday morning, titled Managing the Design and Implementation of Controls – A Review The usual definition Occupational hygiene is that it is : the discipline of anticipating, recognising, evaluating and controlling health hazards in the working environment with

Controlling silica exposure during fettling of castings

In foundries, once  the casting is removed from the mould it is usually necessary to remove excess metal and remedy defects. This process is usually referred to as “fettling” or “finishing”. Fettling normally involves the use of powered hand tools such as chippers and grinders. The operation presents a number of significant risks. Using power

Key steps to control health hazards

At the end of June I was invited to make a presentation to the BOHS workshop on the control of health hazards at work. The key points made are summarised in a previous post. I’ve finally got round to uploading the slides I used to Slideshare. These days I try not to overload my presentations

Reconsidering the “hierarchy of control”– Part 2

In a recent post I discussed the basis of the hierarchy of control and how it should be applied in practice. It’s something we cover when we deliver the BOHS module M103 “Controlling hazardous substances” and is also relevant to the control of physical hazards such as noise and vibration. During the M103 course I’ll

Reconsidering the “hierarchy of control”– Part 1

We normally take a break from running courses over the summer – most people are more interested in enjoying some time off than attending an intensive week of study. But it was back to business as usual last week delivering the BOHS module M103 “Control of hazardous substances” in Chester. I’ll also be running the

Key steps to control exposure to health hazards at work

Last week I travelled over to Derby to attend a workshop organised by Mark Piney, the new BOHS “topic lead” on control of exposure. The objective was to explore the key issues on control that BOHS could be working on, and to try to decide on priorities. The workshop started by exploring the experiences and

Testing walk-in spray booths

We recently received a query from a client who carry out paint spraying of isocyanate based two pack paints in a large walk-in type spray booth. They wanted us to carry out sampling to help them to decide when it was safe to enter the booth without their workers wearing their air fed masks. This

Glove boxes

Glove boxes are often used in the pharmaceutical industry to control highly toxic “active” agents used in drug formulations. In principle they should provide a high degree of protection for the user. The contaminant is completely contained inside an extracted enclosure while the worker is outside. So when we’re carrying out a risk assessment and