Accountability.Directing safety

Building interdependent trust and belonging should be part of the mission statement for every corporate endeavor that involves people. It should influence almost every conversation we have with coworkers. It is a continuous journey, essential to cultivating an organization of individuals and teams whose personal and shared accountabilities for safety and health are sufficient to achieve a Total Safety Culture. The seven C-words reviewed here are easy to remember, and although their meanings overlap to some extent, each offers distinct directives for trust-budding behavior. 

Technical requirements Sound engineering practice, essential requirements tarticle 3t The directive includes a particular technical requirement with respect to equipment which presents only a minor pressure hazard. For such equipment the essential requirements and the certification procedures are not applicable. Instead the so-called sound engineering practice of one of the Member States must be applied. That practice must ensure that design and manufacture takes into account all relevant factors influencing safety during the intended lifetime. The equipment must be accompanied with adequate instruetions for use and must bear the identification of the manufacturer. The CE-marking shall not be applied for such equipment. 

The manufacturing cost consists of direct, indirect, distribution, and fixed costs. Direct costs are raw materials, operating labor, production supervision, utihties, suppHes, repair, and maintenance. Typical indirect costs include payroll overhead, quaHty control, storage, royalties, and plant overhead, eg, safety, protection, personnel, services, yard, waste, environmental control, and other plant categories. However, environmental control costs are frequendy set up as a separate account and calculated direcdy. The principal distribution costs are packaging and shipping. Fixed costs, which are insensitive to production level, include depreciation, property taxes, rents, insurance, and, in some cases, interest expense. 

Only 10 firms account for 75% of agrochemicals sales, while the 15 largest drug companies have a market share of only 33% (Stinson, 1995). About 85% of fine chemicals are manufactured by companies of the triad the United States (28%), Western Europe (39%), and Japan (17%). Italy, with 4.0 million litres reactor capacity and 71 manufacturers, topped the European fine chemicals industry (Layman, 1993). Recently India, China, and Eastern-Central European countries have gained a significant proportion of the market, as a result of the lower direct labour costs and the more relaxed environmental and safety standards. It is fair to state that the high quality of chemists in these countries has also contributed to this development. In 1993, the cost of producing fine chemicals in India was 12% below that in Europe (Layman, 1993). 

As described in Section 3.1, CSB data represent only a sampling of reactive incidents and should not be directly compared to BLS data, which offer a more complete accounting of occupational fatalities. Nonetheless, CSB data provide an indication that a significant number of fatalities from process safety incidents involve reactive hazards. 

This should provide direction as to how operations staff, emergency responders, and the public should respond to a potential toxic release (e.g., chemical plumes released), including facility evacuation, personnel accountability, proper personal protective equipment (PPE) as dictated by the Risk Management Program and Process Safety Management Plan, and whether the nearby public should be in-place sheltered or evacuated. 

The question of an extra assessment factor in the hazard and risk assessment for chemicals of concern for children is specifically addressed in Section 5.2.1.13. The U.S. Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) (US-EPA 1996) directed the US-EPA to apply an extra safety factor of 10 in assessing the risks of pesticides to infants and children. The US-EPA (2002) noted the overlap of areas covered by the FQPA factor and those addressed by the traditional UFs, and it was concluded that an additional UF (children-specific) is not needed in the setting of reference values because the currently available UFs (interspecies, intraspecies, LQAEL-to-NOAEL, subchronic-to-chronic, and database-deficiency) were considered sufficient to account for uncertainties in the database from which the reference values are derived. Renwick et al. (2000) concluded that the available data did not provide a scientific rationale for an additional 10-fold UF for infants and children and pointed out that when adequate reproduction, multigeneration, or developmental studies are conducted, there will be no need for an additional 10-fold factor. 

The MRL is based on the type and amount of residue considered to be without any direct or indirect toxicological hazard for human health. It is established on the basis of an ADI or, where this is not possible because of insufficient scientific knowledge, on the basis of a temporary ADI that includes an additional safety factor. It takes into account factors such as the development of resistance to the drug, allergenic potential and other undesirable side effects, which may have either a direct or indirect effect on human health. The MRL may also need to be reduced to accommodate residues that may be present in other food products and/or the environment. 

Often, estimates of exposure are compared directly with benchmark doses or concentrations (i.e. those that result in a critical effect of defined increase in incidence, such as 5% or 10%). Alternatively, they are compared with either a lowest-observed-adverse-effect level (LOAEL), the lowest concentration that leads to an adverse effect, or no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL), the highest concentration that does not lead to an adverse effect, or their equivalents. This results in a margin of safety or margin of exposure . Alternatively, estimates of exposure are compared with tolerable or reference concentrations or doses, which are based on the division of benchmark doses and/or concentrations or the NOAELs or LOAELs by factors that account for uncertainties in the available data. 

Risk evaluation programmes exist, for pressure vessels, which take into account European Directives [12] the risk factor - related to material brittleness and embrittlement, corrosion effects and localised stresses - is elevated and requires the adoption of rigorous safety measures. The manufacture and control procedures - including welding parameters and structural solutions - should be, in this case, more accurate and devoted to avoid the described defects. 

Fr = friction due to reversal of flow direction, ft lbf/lbm Fs = safety factor in Eq. (29) to account for bypassing on shell side of exchanger, dimensionless... 

Cocaine use may account for up to 25% of acute myocardial infarctions among patients aged 18-45 years. The safety of a 12-hour observation period in a chest pain unit followed by discharge in individuals with cocaine-associated chest discomfort who are at low risk of cardiovascular events has been evaluated in 302 consecutive patients aged 18 years or older (66% men, 70% black, 84% tobacco users) who developed chest pain within 1 week of cocaine use or who tested positive for cocaine (59). Cocaine use was self-reported by 247 of the 302 subjects and rest had urine positive for cocaine 203 had used crack cocaine, 51 reported snorting, and 10 had used it intravenously. Of the 247 who reported cocaine use, 237 (96%) said they had used it in the week before presentation and 169 (68%) within 24 hours before presentation. Follow-up information was obtained for 300 subjects. There were no deaths from cardiovascular causes. Four patients had a non-fatal myocardial infarction during the 30-day period all four had continued to use cocaine. Of the 42 who were directly admitted to hospital, 20 had acute coronary syndrome. The authors suggested that in... 

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