Every year, thousands of workers are injured or suffer ill effects due to hazardous substances. Employers are responsible for taking effective measures to control exposure to these substances and to ensure proper procedures are in place in the event of a spill or splash.
There is a wide range of chemicals that can be hazardous to workers health. If a substance is harmful, they will be clearly labelled with the relevant hazard symbol(s). Common materials in everyday use such as paint, bleach, solvent, or fillers are all considered hazardous.
The water held in a self-contained shower or eye/face wash units may become stagnant. This makes it susceptible to bacterial growth and if not properly treated and maintained can become a source of infection.
We outline some practical steps for limiting bacteria growth in your safety showers and eye/face wash equipment.
Ensuring you have the right emergency safety equipment can be challenging, especially if your site does not have easy access to a clean potable water supply. Water pressure can also be an issue for a lot of sites.
For a lot of locations, portable emergency safety showers and face/eyewash stations are essential. If installation measures for a plumbed in unit cannot be met, portable equipment can provide immediate access, guaranteeing worker safety.
The European standards, BS EN15154 and the international standard for safety showers and eye/face wash equipment, ANSI Z358.1-2014 specify that water delvered by an emergency safety shower must be tepid and is vital to ensuring worker safety.
Safety showers provide immediate relief for employees splashed with hazardous chemicals. However, a safety shower that operates outside of the tepid water range can cause more harm to a victim
It’s important to know how seasonal weather changes affect your safety equipment, especially if placed outdoors.
With some sites closed due to regional and national lockdown, it’s more crucial than ever that you inspect and maintain your emergency safety showers to ensure they are ready for winter.
Outokumpu are the global leader in stainless steel, boasting the widest product portfolio in the market. With 100 years of expertise in metals and mining, they aim to become the best value creator in stainless steel.
Their Sheffield facility has different process lines with varying mixtures of acids and caustics, bulk storage areas and effluent treatment. To ensure workers who could be exposed to any of these hazardous substances have access to quality and functional safety showers and eye/face wash equiment, they decided they needed to replace their old safety shower models.
A fact that was made clear at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was that supplies of disinfectants, PPE and alcohol gel were too low to meet the demands of both front-line workers and the general public. Health-care workers in particular struggled with shortages, and alcohol hand gel was out of stock in stores everywhere.
Unexpectedly, micro-breweries and distilleries stepped in to meet the increased need. These manufacturers quickly altered their processes to make way for the production of thousands upon thousands of bottles of hand sanitiser.
Data storage centre sites store computing and networking equipment for the purpose of collecting, storing, processing, distributing or allowing access to large amounts of data. It's essential to ensure that these sites conform to health and safety guidelines and workers are safe.
Hughes Safety Showers, based in Stockport, Manchester has won an International Safety Award from the British Safety Council in recognition of its commitment to keeping its workers and workplaces healthy and safe during the 2019 calendar year.
The new PORTAdec™ 500 portable decontamination misting shower from Hughes is designed to be used with an "appropriate disinfectant" solution in order to prevent the spread of COVID that may be present on a person's PPE or clothing. Hughes recommends the use of hypochlorous acid. Sounds scary doesn't it? The more welcoming term for this disinfectant is electrolysed water, but what is it and is it effective?
The food & drink industry is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, contributing more than £28bn to the economy every year. This industry and its employees face increased demand from a constantly growing population. As pressure to escalate production increases, the industry cannot afford to neglect the safety of its workers.
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