Prevention measures hazardous materials

Medical Programs. Large chemical plants have at least one full-time physician who is at the plant five days a week and on call at all other times. Smaller plants either have part-time physicians or take injured employees to a nearby hospital or clinic by arrangement with the company compensation-insurance carrier. When part-time physicians or outside medical services are used, there is litde opportunity for medical personnel to become familiar with plant operations or to assist in improving the health aspects of plant work. Therefore, it is essential that chemical-hazards manuals and procedures, which highlight symptoms and methods of treatment, be developed. A full-time industrial physician should devote a substantial amount of time to becoming familiar with the plant, its processes, and the materials employed. Such education enables the physician to be better prepared to treat injuries and illnesses and to advise on preventive measures. 

The safety and loss prevention guide developed by the Dow Chemical Company provides a method for evaluating the potential hazards of a process and assessing the safety and loss-prevention measures needed. In this procedure, a numerical Fire and Explosion Index is calculated, based on the nature of the process and the properties of the materials. The index can be used two different ways. In the preliminary design, the Dow index will indicate whether alternative,... 

Safety. Solvents with low potential for fire and reactive chemistry hazards are preferred as inherently safe solvents. In all cases, solvents must be used with a full awareness of potential hazards and in a manner consistent with measures needed to avoid hazards. For information on the safe use of solvents and their potential hazards, see Sec. 23, Safety and Handling of Hazardous Materials. Also see Growl and Louvar, Chemical Process Safety Fundamentals with Applications (Prentice-Hall, 2001) Yaws, Handbook of Chemical Compound Data for Process Safety (Elsevier, 1997) Lees, Lo.ss Prevention in the Process Industries (Butterworth, 1996) and Bretherick s Handbook of Reactive Chemical Hazards, 6th ed., Urben and Pitt, eds. (Butter-worth-Heinemann, 1999). 

Technical systems which contain material representing a hazard potential must be treated under controled, safe conditions. A respective design of the facility and its operational modes is checked by different kinds of safety considerations. In addition to the consequences of normal operation, the system behavior under accident conditions has to be considered in terms of sufficient measures for controling accidents. Assumptions are being made based upon experience which has been achieved in the course of the technical development and which has resulted in a system of laws, regulations, rules, guidelines, and recommendations, e.g., for the design of components, for quality assurance, for fire protection and also for accident prevention measures. 

Isolation employs separation as an accident prevention measure. Incompatible conditions or materials that would create a hazard if brought together are kept separated. Examples... 

Flame retardant plastics play an important role in our society. They are used in cases where there is a requirement to protect people and property from a possible fire hazard. Together with other decisive fire prevention measures, such as structural design and the use of smoke detectors, the choice of materials is one of the basic decisions to be taken by developers and manufacturers of plastic parts. 

Training must include information on the elements listed in the Hazard Communication — Container Labels Toolbox Talk. You may also wish to cover hazmat employee training elements as necessary, in accordance with 49 CFR 172.700 to. 704. Hazmat employees must be familiar with the regulations and able to recognize and identify hazardous materials. They must have knowledge of emergency response information, self-protection measures, accident prevention methods, and various security elements listed in the regulations. 

Risk is the probability of suffering harm from being exposed to an unsafe situation or a hazardous material. Risk can almost always be reduced to acceptable levels if the nature of the risk is recognized and understood since preventive measures can be implemented. For example, in the laboratory we are able to use a flammable chemical such as acetone because we can take precautions to prevent a Are by keeping the flammable material away from ignition sources and using ventilation to remove vapors so that flammable air concentrations do not form. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requires contractors who perform construction work for the federal government to prepare a safety and occupational health plan (SOH). The idea is to analyze the potential work on a specific job or project and to plan accident prevention measures for each phase and component of the work. The plan includes work performed by subcontractors. It includes contractor hazard control measures. The plan must include frequent and regularly scheduled safety inspections of work sites, materials and equipment by competent persons. 

At the risk evaluation step, if the risks are found to be unacceptable, then further risk control measures win he necessary. These include measures for preventing incidents and impacts (such as implementing process safety and loss management systems for minimizing chances and consequences of hazardous material releases), and measures for responding to incidents should they occur. Cost/henefit considerations will also play a role in selecting the risk control measures for implementation. Each additional risk control measure changes the risk level, and the process of improvement continues until the risks become acceptable to the stakeholders. The involvement of the stakeholders in each step in the process is indicated in Fig. 10.5 by double-headed arrows. 

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