Hazardous materials worker

This section provides an overview of important definitions and terminology that the Hazardous Materials Worker and Emergency Response Personnel should know. Emergency response at sites other than hazardous waste clean-up sites are emphasized. Under OSHA s 29 CFR1910.120 emergency response personnel (that will take some action to control the situation other than call for help) shall be trained to a competence to protect themselves and other employees in ... 

Exclusion Zone The area surrounding a particular incident site (such as a spill, a fire, or a hazardous waste pile or subarea under remediation), wherein only trained and fully protected hazardous materials workers may enter to perform necessary operation. 

Decontamination solutions are normally solutions of water and chemical compounds designed to react with and neutralize specific contaminants. The temperature of the liquid and contact time should be given consideration to be sure complete neutralization has taken place. In some cases hazardous materials workers may be faced with an unknown hazardous materials and will require decontamination after leaving the hot zone. The following solutions should be used for unknowns since they are effective for a variety of contaminants. 

Health effects are a major concern with hazardous substances and hazardous wastes generated in the anthrosphere. These include worker exposure during the generation, use, treatment, and disposal of hazardous materials worker exposure resulting from remediation of disposal sites exposure of people to emissions from disposal sites and exposure of the public to hazardous substances as a result of transportation. 

Workers involved in hazardous waste eleanup, handling hazardous materials or other hazardous substanees, faee a more serious safety and health risk than do most eonstruetion or manufaeturing operations. In addition to the typieal slips, trips, and falls found in other eonstruetion or manufaeturing operations, employees handling hazardous waste or ehemieals may eneounter a variety of other hazards ineluding fires, explosions, and health-related issues assoeiated with exposures to toxie substanees. 

Although heat-related disorders ean oeeur in a variety of work environments, heat stress and heat-related illnesses are an espeeially diflfieult situation to handle on eonstruetion sites. These heat-related disorders beeome more diffieult when working with hazardous materials, partieu-larly when workers are required to wear speeialized personal proteetive equipment (PPE). Under other eonditions workers may have a potential to eneounter high levels of radioaetive materials mixed with hazardous material (termed mixed waste ). Although mixed waste has been found in a variety of industries, it is eonsidered somewhat unique to Department of Energy (DOE) sites. [1]... 

Wlien utility work is located in an exclusion zone, are workers who enter the area exposed to hazardous materials Hazard characterization and exposure assessment performed by a competent person may show that the area surrounding the equipment and an access corridor leading to the equipment can be cleaned so that the utility workers can work in the... 

If the souree of eontamination is an extremely hazardous or dangerous material and the task at hand requires that workers eome in eontaet with this dangerous material, plan on extra time for deeontam-ination. On the other hand, if the hazardous material borders on nui-sanee levels, and ean easily and readily be removed, or workers use only disposable elothing, deeontamination should take mueh less time. 

We mention the hazardous waste standard due to the speeifie requirements of this standard. However, should your operation involve hazardous materials, the same basie prineiples apply. Those prineiples, simply stated, are that workers should be properly trained, qualified, and prepared to perform their work. If their work is responding to an emergeney situation or release, the worker should be able to do so without beeoming injured. It does not matter if your site is a hazardous waste site or not workers should be adequately prepared to perform expeeted work. 

The information to be compiled about the chemicals, including process intermediates, needs to be comprehensive enough for an accurate assessment of the fire and explosion characteristics, reactivity hazards, the safety and health hazards to workers, and the corrosion and erosion effects on the process equipment and monitoring tools. Current material safety data sheet (MSDS) information can be used to help meet this requirement but must be supplemented with process chemistry information, including runaway reaction and over-pressure hazards, if applicable. 

Consequence Analysis the effects of the in the plant on the workers and the dispersed hazardous materials on the publie and environment is assessed using computer models,... 

Catastrophic Release - A major uncontrolled emission, of hazardous material that presents serious danger to workers or the public. 

Many accidents have occurred because equipment, though isolated correctly, was not completely freed from hazardous materials or because the pressure inside it was not completely blown off and the workers carrying out the repair were not made aware of this. 

Fatal accident rate Lost-time injury rate Capital cost of accidents Number of plant/community evacuations Cost of business interruption Cost of workers compensation claims Number of hazardous material spills (in excess of a threshold) Tonnage of hazardous material spilled Tonnage of air, water, liquid and solid effluent Tonnage of polluting materials released into the environment Employee exposure monitoring Number of work related sickness claims Number of regulatory citations and fines Ecological impact of operations (loss or restoration of biodiversity, species, habitats)... 

OSHA s Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) legislation protects workers who respond to emergencies, such as serious spills, involving hazardous materials. It also covers those employed in cleanup operations at uncontrolled hazardous waste sites and at EPA-licensed waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities. 

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