A New Meaning To “Silent But Deadly”
Working in confined spaces increases the danger to workers of breathing contaminated air. But there’s no longer an excuse not to see a hidden, silent danger.
– by Isaac Rudik
Recently, Javier del Rio was cleaning an empty tank used to store flaxseed oil. When he lost consciousness, a co-worker jumped in to save him. He also lost consciousness and both men were asphyxiated.
According to investigators, argon gas was pumped into the tank to drive out oxygen when it was filled with oil. Once the tank was empty for cleaning, oxygen was pumped back into it and vents were opened to remove the argon. But some of the argon gas – which is heavier than oxygen – lurked at the bottom of the tank, displacing fresh air del Rio and his colleague needed to breathe.
Government regulations mandate that employees be protected properly against numerous hazards, including breathing noxious gas. And monitoring the workplace for air quality has never been easier. New and emerging technology makes doing so not only more effective but far less costly than even a few years ago, removing an excuse companies hid behind for decades when caught.
With courts imposing hefty fines on companies, and awarding record sums to employees injured after breathing contaminated air, there is new meaning to the old warning “silent but deadly” when referring to bad air.
Don’t Assume
Most people put their faith in knowing they will breathe good air, whether indoors or in a confined space such as the workplace. Not unreasonably, they assume someone is checking for the safety of the air they are breathing.
When someone doesn’t do their job, or there is an undetected leak, the results are disastrous.
Air – whether life sustaining or deadly – is usually colourless, odourless and tasteless. As a result, many gases are infused with an additive to create an aroma. That’s why when someone calls 911 to report smelling gas in their home, what they smell isn’t the gas but the additive designed to alert to a leak or contamination.
The atmosphere in a confined work space may seem like any other. But because many industrial gases have no odour additive, companies can never assume that all is safe.
Confined spaces on a shop floor have fooled scores of injured or killed workers every year after they assumed somebody checked for air quality. But the worst thing for a worker to do is to or “follow their nose,” guessing that since the air smelled alright it was safe to enter. But air may look and smell safe but be filled with enough toxic contaminants to kill anyone breathing it in, especially in an enclosed area.
Smart Prevention
As with every other workplace safety issue, prevention is easier – and far less costly – than fixing a problem.
The best approach is to issue workers who might be at risk with personal multi-gas monitors which monitor air quality continuously as an employee goes about their job, whether at their work station or if moving around the plant. A second option is a “confined space monitor” designed to be used only in small, high risk areas of the factory.
Typically, these devices offer multiple warnings to the worker wearing one: A loud sound warning such as a 95db beeping or horn, a warning light and a vibrating pulse in case the wearer misses either of the other two alerts. At least one of the three should grab a worker’s attention, following the old saw about “if at first you don’t get noticed, keep trying ‘til you do.”
It’s always best to find smart ways to prevent fumes from causing an injury. But, in many cases, fumes are part of the process. Ensuring that workers are alerted now to noxious air before they’re injured helps make certain that your plant won’t be victimised by an incident that could have been prevented.
Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc., Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.
E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Contaminated Water Is More Than Just A Third World Problem
Contaminated Water Is More Than Just A Third World Problem
Even in Canada, where clean water is taken for granted, good water can turn bad and contaminate the processing line if proper precautions aren’t taken. Preventing a problem before a contaminant finds its way into food is a fraction of the cost of fixing it.
– by Isaac Rudik
Recently, a major food processor had to recall tens of thousands of contaminated packaged products. Not only did the recall, and finding and fixing the problem, cost millions of dollars, it did untold damage to the company’s reputation with consumers.
While the source of the problem in the processing line was eventually located and fixed, the issue highlights a major issue every business dealing with food for human consumption faces: Ensuring that contamination from one of dozens of potential trouble spots doesn’t creep into products that people eat.
Even in Canada, where clean water is taken for granted, it’s possible that what starts out as potable can become contaminated, affecting everything from fruits and vegetables to meat processing and harvested grains – and companies that process the products through to the people who consume them.
No Wiggle Room
Ensuring clean water and safe products that use water in processing is a fundamental obligation of government in Canada and other developed nations. Thus, the law leaves no wiggle room for businesses that allow water to become tainted and contaminate food, whether through sloppy procedures at a plant or just by accident.
At its most basic, the Canadian Food Inspection System requires that raw materials and ingredients are cleaned, sorted and prepared in a way that prevents contamination. In handling food, water – used for everything from washing fruit to cleaning machinery – can become tainted easily as microbes, bacteria and other pollutants are transmitted in one of countless ways. And when a food processor runs afoul of the law, penalties are fast, stiff and public.
At a minimum, fines for violations can begin as high as $60,000 per incident – and rise from there. If the government finds the cause is negligence, criminal charges may be brought against the business, its executives and key employees. Generally, expensive consultants and expensive lab work are needed to locate and remedy the cause of the contamination, and product recalls extract a high dollar cost.
Meanwhile, the company suffers enormous damage to its reputation.
Any time a food product is recalled, it attracts big headlines and extensive coverage on television and radio newscasts. The company must launch a far-reaching advertising and public relations campaign, first to alert distributors, retailers and consumers and then to reassure its customers that not only is every effort being made to ensure the problem doesn’t happen again but the steps it is taking to win back consumer confidence.
Indeed, one Harvard Business School study shows that even for a food processing company with an unblemished record of more than a century of providing safe food, it can up to two years to win back customers after a recall. Along the way, sales, margins and profits are adversely affected.
Easy Prevention
Yet it is relatively easy to prevent water used in food processing from becoming contaminated.
Preventing exposure to contaminated water reduces day-to-day operating costs, and can improve profitability along the way. So-called Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) in the form of full body suits that include a hood, a full face shield, goggles or a mask that forms a tight bond around the mouth and nose plus shoe covers sounds complicated but is easy to wear and inexpensive to purchase.
For example, a supplier such as CSC carries such safety wear starting as inexpensively as $180 per suit. Moreover, the cost of PPE is more than offset by its positive effect on production time and the quality of work as well as keeping not just the processing line safe from contaminants but also workers. In fact, often overlooked in a contamination-caused recall are work related injuries or sickness that arises when a worker becomes exposed to a contaminant.
The problems of contaminated water are not just an issue in third world countries. Even in Canada, it’s easy for H20 to become tainted, affecting food production, consumer confidence, and sales and profits. But it’s easier – and far less costly – to prevent a problem from arising in the first place.
Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc. , Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.
E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.
Even in Canada, where clean water is taken for granted, good water can turn bad and contaminate the processing line if proper precautions aren’t taken. Preventing a problem before a contaminant finds its way into food is a fraction of the cost of fixing it.
– by Isaac Rudik
Recently, a major food processor had to recall tens of thousands of contaminated packaged products. Not only did the recall, and finding and fixing the problem, cost millions of dollars, it did untold damage to the company’s reputation with consumers.
While the source of the problem in the processing line was eventually located and fixed, the issue highlights a major issue every business dealing with food for human consumption faces: Ensuring that contamination from one of dozens of potential trouble spots doesn’t creep into products that people eat.
Even in Canada, where clean water is taken for granted, it’s possible that what starts out as potable can become contaminated, affecting everything from fruits and vegetables to meat processing and harvested grains – and companies that process the products through to the people who consume them.
No Wiggle Room
Ensuring clean water and safe products that use water in processing is a fundamental obligation of government in Canada and other developed nations. Thus, the law leaves no wiggle room for businesses that allow water to become tainted and contaminate food, whether through sloppy procedures at a plant or just by accident.
At its most basic, the Canadian Food Inspection System requires that raw materials and ingredients are cleaned, sorted and prepared in a way that prevents contamination. In handling food, water – used for everything from washing fruit to cleaning machinery – can become tainted easily as microbes, bacteria and other pollutants are transmitted in one of countless ways. And when a food processor runs afoul of the law, penalties are fast, stiff and public.
At a minimum, fines for violations can begin as high as $60,000 per incident – and rise from there. If the government finds the cause is negligence, criminal charges may be brought against the business, its executives and key employees. Generally, expensive consultants and expensive lab work are needed to locate and remedy the cause of the contamination, and product recalls extract a high dollar cost.
Meanwhile, the company suffers enormous damage to its reputation.
Any time a food product is recalled, it attracts big headlines and extensive coverage on television and radio newscasts. The company must launch a far-reaching advertising and public relations campaign, first to alert distributors, retailers and consumers and then to reassure its customers that not only is every effort being made to ensure the problem doesn’t happen again but the steps it is taking to win back consumer confidence.
Indeed, one Harvard Business School study shows that even for a food processing company with an unblemished record of more than a century of providing safe food, it can up to two years to win back customers after a recall. Along the way, sales, margins and profits are adversely affected.
Easy Prevention
Yet it is relatively easy to prevent water used in food processing from becoming contaminated.
Preventing exposure to contaminated water reduces day-to-day operating costs, and can improve profitability along the way. So-called Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) in the form of full body suits that include a hood, a full face shield, goggles or a mask that forms a tight bond around the mouth and nose plus shoe covers sounds complicated but is easy to wear and inexpensive to purchase.
For example, a supplier such as CSC carries such safety wear starting as inexpensively as $180 per suit. Moreover, the cost of PPE is more than offset by its positive effect on production time and the quality of work as well as keeping not just the processing line safe from contaminants but also workers. In fact, often overlooked in a contamination-caused recall are work related injuries or sickness that arises when a worker becomes exposed to a contaminant.
The problems of contaminated water are not just an issue in third world countries. Even in Canada, it’s easy for H20 to become tainted, affecting food production, consumer confidence, and sales and profits. But it’s easier – and far less costly – to prevent a problem from arising in the first place.
Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc. , Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.
E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Serious Spillover Of Toxic Spills
The Serious Spillover Of Toxic Spills
Business executives and owners can pay a stiff personal and financial price for not taking steps to prevent toxic spills coming from their business. Since prevention costs a fraction of the price, it’s silly not to be proactive.
– by Isaac Rudik
Not long ago, the owner and president of a small company in Belleville, Ontario was found guilty of discharging PCB-contaminated sediment into the environment from his factory. Not only was he held responsible for the spill, a court found that he failed to comply with a provincial order to clean up the site. The man was fined $659,000 and sent to prison for four months.
That’s an expensive personal and financial price for anyone to pay for something that could have been prevented in the first place – at a fraction of the cost and without anyone being locked up. How much less costly? The price of one salvage drum for storing toxic material such as PCB-contaminated sediment is $264.
Indeed, Ontario’s Ministry of Environment is pushing for tougher penalties as it raises fines and hires more inspectors to enforce the Environmental Protection Act. For companies with a potential exposure, the time to deal with a problem is before it happens: To borrow a phrase and adapt it to today’s cleaner, greener world, $264 worth of prevention is worth a lot more than $659,000 of cure.
Heavy Costs
Even without the stiff fine and jail time handed down to the Belleville businessman, the cost of cleaning up a spill and preventing another one is high.
Simply removing the toxins after-the-fact is an expensive proposition. A consultant will be needed to assess the damage and create a clean-up implementation plan. Specialists will be needed for the actual clean-up and removal. Transporting and disposing of toxic waste once it has been let loose in an uncontrolled way is as expensive as it is time-consuming and dangerous.
Moreover, if the toxins spread into the atmosphere, ground water or property beyond the site of the actual spill, the negligent company is likely to face enormous legal bills for negotiating settlements with municipalities, regions, the province and adjoining businesses or homes. If the accident causes injury or death, the resulting lawsuits might make the rest of the costs seem like lunch money by comparison.
While some of the cost of a first accident may be covered by insurance, one toxic discharge will mean that either insurance is no longer available or the premiums are so steep a business cannot afford them.
Proactive Solutions
Every business dealing with toxic materials is under a number of serious legal obligations. The law says that companies having control over a pollutant that spills must notify the ministry within a short period of time; more to the point, it must also implement a program to eliminate, fix and prevent the negative effects of the accident on the environment, restoring it to the condition it was in before the damage.
There is a smart way to prevent damaging the environment – and the business.
The easiest, and the one that is cost-effective for many locations, is a simple spill kit. They are available for use inside a facility as well as outdoor locations. A supplier such as CSC can provide these as well as specialised spill kits for vehicles. Spill containment systems are placed under barrels and other containers of all sizes carrying substances that are harmful to the environment.
Preventing spills is a much less expensive than cleaning up a site. As the Belleville company and its president learned too late, $264 worth of prevention is worth a lot more than $659,000 of cure.
Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc., Canada’s largest provider of providing health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities. E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.
Business executives and owners can pay a stiff personal and financial price for not taking steps to prevent toxic spills coming from their business. Since prevention costs a fraction of the price, it’s silly not to be proactive.
– by Isaac Rudik
Not long ago, the owner and president of a small company in Belleville, Ontario was found guilty of discharging PCB-contaminated sediment into the environment from his factory. Not only was he held responsible for the spill, a court found that he failed to comply with a provincial order to clean up the site. The man was fined $659,000 and sent to prison for four months.
That’s an expensive personal and financial price for anyone to pay for something that could have been prevented in the first place – at a fraction of the cost and without anyone being locked up. How much less costly? The price of one salvage drum for storing toxic material such as PCB-contaminated sediment is $264.
Indeed, Ontario’s Ministry of Environment is pushing for tougher penalties as it raises fines and hires more inspectors to enforce the Environmental Protection Act. For companies with a potential exposure, the time to deal with a problem is before it happens: To borrow a phrase and adapt it to today’s cleaner, greener world, $264 worth of prevention is worth a lot more than $659,000 of cure.
Heavy Costs
Even without the stiff fine and jail time handed down to the Belleville businessman, the cost of cleaning up a spill and preventing another one is high.
Simply removing the toxins after-the-fact is an expensive proposition. A consultant will be needed to assess the damage and create a clean-up implementation plan. Specialists will be needed for the actual clean-up and removal. Transporting and disposing of toxic waste once it has been let loose in an uncontrolled way is as expensive as it is time-consuming and dangerous.
Moreover, if the toxins spread into the atmosphere, ground water or property beyond the site of the actual spill, the negligent company is likely to face enormous legal bills for negotiating settlements with municipalities, regions, the province and adjoining businesses or homes. If the accident causes injury or death, the resulting lawsuits might make the rest of the costs seem like lunch money by comparison.
While some of the cost of a first accident may be covered by insurance, one toxic discharge will mean that either insurance is no longer available or the premiums are so steep a business cannot afford them.
Proactive Solutions
Every business dealing with toxic materials is under a number of serious legal obligations. The law says that companies having control over a pollutant that spills must notify the ministry within a short period of time; more to the point, it must also implement a program to eliminate, fix and prevent the negative effects of the accident on the environment, restoring it to the condition it was in before the damage.
There is a smart way to prevent damaging the environment – and the business.
The easiest, and the one that is cost-effective for many locations, is a simple spill kit. They are available for use inside a facility as well as outdoor locations. A supplier such as CSC can provide these as well as specialised spill kits for vehicles. Spill containment systems are placed under barrels and other containers of all sizes carrying substances that are harmful to the environment.
Preventing spills is a much less expensive than cleaning up a site. As the Belleville company and its president learned too late, $264 worth of prevention is worth a lot more than $659,000 of cure.
Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc., Canada’s largest provider of providing health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities. E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.
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