Hazards and their prevention

Petroleum and chemical related hazards can arise from the presence of combustible or toxic liquids, gases, mist, or dust in the work environment. Common physical hazards include ambient heat, bums, noise, vibration, sudden pressure changes, radiation, and electric shock. Various external sources, such as chemical, biological, or physical hazards, can cause work related injuries or fatalities. Although all of these hazards are of concern this book primarily concentrates on fire and explosions hazards that can cause catastrophic events. 

Hazards may also result from the interaction between company employees and the work environment these are called ergonomic hazards. If the physical, psychological, or environmental demands on workers exceed their capabilities, an ergonomic hazard exists. These hazards, in themselves may lead to fiirther major incidents when the individual cannot perform properly under stress during critical periods of plant 

Industrial fire protection and safety engineers attempt to eliminate hazards at their source or to reduce their intensity with protective systems. Hazard elimination may typically require the use of alternative and less toxic materials, changes in the process, spacing or guarding, improved ventilation or, spill control or inventory reduction measures, fire and explosion protective measures - both active and passive mechanisms, protective clothing, etc. The level or protection is dependent on the risk prevalent at the facility versus the cost to implement safety measures. 

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Accident prevention techniques, such as job hazard analysis, safe operating procedures, and job safety observations, have their application to specific jobs within the workplace. In general, they aim to address and identify existing or potential work-related hazards. These types of accident prevention techniques are emphasized in this book. Most books addressing accident prevention techniques usually emphasize specific job hazards and their prevention, such as fire safety and machine guarding. This particular book places only minor emphasis on specific job hazards. 

Establishing a complete hazard inventory is not as complicated as it may sound. It begins with having a professional conduct a comprehensive survey to determine existing and/or potential hazards of your worksite. Periodic surveys, conducted at intervals that make sense for the size and complexity of your worksite, will help to identify any new engineering or scientific knowledge of hazards and their prevention. These subsequent surveys also can help find new hazards that have evolved as a result of changing work procedures. 

Mehta, A., Gupta, M. Upadhyaya, N. 2013. Status of occupational hazards and their prevention among dental professionals in Chandigarh, India A comprehensive questionnaire survey. Dent Res J (Irfahan) 10(4) 446-451. 

This paper highlights the problem of mercury emissions in Europe. It also discusses the issues of transportation of mercury via human body and presents health hazards and their preventive actions. Finally, the limitations of existing technologies along with emerging technologies are widely summarized. 

Nystrom AE Health hazards in the chloroprene industry and their prevention. Acta Med Scand Suppl 132 5-125, 1948... 

Electrostatic Charges of Explosives and Their Prevention. See under ELECTRICITY, EXTRANEOUS AND HAZARDS ASSOCIATED WITH IT... 

NyStrom, A.E. (1948) Health hazards in the chloroprene rubber industry and their prevention. A clinical and experimental study with special reference to chloroprene as well as oxidation and polymerization products thereof. Acta med. scand., 132 (Suppl. 219), 1-125... 

CFR1910.38 4.2.1 Employee Emergency Plans and Fire Prevention Plans. Maintain a list of the major workplace fire hazards and their proper handling and storage procedures potential ignition sources and their control procedures and the type of fire protection equipment or systems that can control a fire involving the identified hazards. 

A Fimctional Process Analysis (FRA) is first undertaken to identify hazards and their causes in terms of technical and human elements using plant diagrams, safety procedures, incident records and inter-views/observations of operational people. Bow-tie diagrams can be used to develop a graphical representation of hazards and potential barriers that can prevent or mitigate failure consequences. The next step involves the analysis of human-related barriers (e.g., operator visual checks, operator procedures etc) in Older to identify possible task deviations and human errors that may diminish the efficiency of barriers or make them fad. The analysis of human barriers and task deviations is done with the support of Task... 

Identify some standards of practice in individual engineering fields for specific hazards and their controls. Talk to craftsmen to see what standards of practice they use in certain tasks to prevent injuries. 

The aim of this chapter is to lay a foundation for discussion of many kinds of hazards and their control. The foundation involves understanding what a hazard is, how to recognize it and how to choose the controls that prevent incidents and accidents and any harm that may result. Other chapters in Part III of the book will apply this foundation to specific kinds of hazards. 

Kordesch, K., and G. Simander Fuel Cells and Their Applications, VCH Publishers, New York, 1996. Levy, S. C., and P. Bro Battery Hazards and Accident Prevention, Plenum Press, New York, 1994. Mantell, C. L. Batteries and Energy Systems, 2d ed., McGraw-HUl, New York, 1983. 

Chapter 10—Sick Occupational Illnesses—Occupational illnesses often do not occur in real time, but have a latency period before their manifestation. When illnesses arise where symptoms occur immediately, the acute results can often follow a cause scenario similar to that of an injury. But, when exposures to chemicals, radiation, noise, biological entities, or environmental extremes transpire, effects are often not immediate. The approach to prevention has to be addressed before the event. In this chapter, illnesses and their preventive approaches will be addressed by following a normal industrial hygiene approach to head off possible occupationally related illnesses. The emphasis is on identifying the potential hazards to health and how to best preclude them or protect your workforce from exposure. 

System safety is a well-thought-out process that is planned, proactive, prudent, and preventive in nature. The primary objective of system safety is to avert mishaps by ensuring that safety is intentionally designed into a product or system. Designed-in safety leads to the inherent operational safety of a product or system. A system is considered safe when it presents acceptable mishap risk. Therefore, system safety is effectively a risk management process that deals in hazards and their associated mishap risk. 

The application of waste-management practices in the United States has recently moved toward securing a new pollution prevention ethic. The performance of pollution prevention assessments and their subsequent implementation will encourage increased activity into methods that 1 further aid in the reduction of hazardous wastes. One of the most important and propitious consequences of the pollution-prevention movement will be the development of life-cycle design and standardized hfe-cycle cost-accounting procedures. These two consequences are briefly discussed in the two paragraphs that follow. Additional information is provided in a later subsection. 

As a last example we turn to the world of medicine. Osteo-arthritis is an illness that affects many people as they get older. The disease affects the joints between different bones in the body and makes it hard - and painful - to move them. The problem is caused by small lumps of bone which grow on the rubbing surfaces of the joints and which prevent them sliding properly. The problem can only be cured by removing the bad joints and putting artificial joints in their place. The first recorded hip-joint replacement was done as far back as 1897 - when it must have been a pretty hazardous business - but the operation is now a routine piece of orthopaedic surgery. In fact 30,000 hip joints are replaced in the UK every year world-wide the number must approach half a million. 

Appendix B further describes suggested steps that employers can take when conducting a hazard assessment. According to the Appendix, a survey should include observations of employees and their relation to injury or illness that can occur from work areas where eye, face, head, foot, or hand protection may be necessary to prevent injury from any of the following hazard sources ... 

Storage vessels are usually located on tank farms. The space around a tank and the distances to other equipment depend on the materials stored, their potential hazardousness and the possibility of the unexpected changes in storage conditions. Fluid storages should be in a safe location away from process and public areas. It is also important to prevent fire spreading between tanks by keeping the level of heat radiation in an acceptable level (Mecklenburgh, 1985). 

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