Before any welding is conducted outside of a designated welding area, a responsible individual must inspect the area and identify precautions to be taken preferably on a written Hot Works permit. Fire extinguishers must be ready for immediate use. A fire watch lasting at least 30 minutes after the welding or cutting operations is required if more than a minor fire might develop.
General hazards of welding include impact, penetration, harmful dust, smoke, fumes, heat and light radiation. Welding “smoke” is a mixture of very fine particles (fumes) and gases. Many of the substances in the smoke can be extremely toxic.
Sparks and spatter fly off from the welding arc. Hot metal and sparks blow out from the cutting flame. The workpiece and equipment get hot. The flying sparks and hot metal, slag, spatter, hot workpiece, and hot equipment can cause burns.
New maps that show drone owners where they can – and cannot – operate should speed up the registration process for the increasingly popular flying machines.
The August 28, 2016, nitrous oxide explosion at the Airgas manufacturing facility in Cantonment, Florida was caused by effective process safety management system (PSM), according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s (CSB) final report on the incident, which killed the only Airgas employee working at the facility that day and heavily damaged the plant. The problem: a majority of PSM’s specialized rules are not required for nitrous oxide facilities.
With less than three weeks to go before its National Safety Stand Down to Prevent Falls in Construction, the “Events” section on the portion of the OSHA website devoted to the stand down is largely empty.
The following states show no Stand-Down activities listed:
“Beating distracted driving will take a wholesale change in our driving culture,” says National Transportation Safety Board, (NTSB) Acting Chairman Robert Sumwalt.
FallTech®, an innovator and leader in Fall Protection Equipment for workers at heights has re-engineered and is launching an update to their work-duty harness, the Journeyman FLEX. “When re-engineering the Journeyman FLEX harness line we had to keep an eye on the attributes of the product that have made it a success with the American Worker – A tough harness at a good value”, said Jeff Shipley Director of Marketing.
Managers of U.S. companies facing market pressures to meet earnings expectations may risk damaging the health and safety of workers to please investors according to recent research from the Naveen Jindal School of Management at UT Dallas.
Working-age people who have fainting spells (a condition known as syncope) have a higher risk of occupational accidents and job loss, compared to adults without the condition, according to new research in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.
Syncope is characterized by a sudden loss of consciousness followed by spontaneous recovery.
