September 2011 Blog Posts (33)

As a safety professional you know the importance of checklists. Without them things that should get done often don't. With them everything that needs to get done, whether we are talking about entering a confined space or a lockout/tagout audit, is one by one checked off to make sure that nothing has been overlooked.

The problem is often making sure that the checklist that you are using is, in fact, complete and that nothing has been left off of it.

That's where…

Lethal Weapon Three (I believe)… Danny Glover is being suffocated by the plastic sheeting that is being used to protect the new addition that he's having built over his garage so he grabs the nail gun that's laying there and nails the bad guy (His pun, not mine!).

While it makes for exciting movie viewing, it's anything but fun when it happens for real. Tens of thousands of workers are injured each year by nail guns.

OSHA & NIOSH, in response to this growing safety hazard…

A new YouTube video by Hexarmor Products is the newest addition to the series of videos by Hexarmor showing how cut resistance, puncture resistance and laceration resistance is measured.

The ASTM F1790 is the standard most frequently used in the United States as a way to measure the cut resistance of safety products. HexArmor tests all of its products using the ASTM F1790, and then applies the ISEA rating…

OSHA has updated with hazard alert to hair salon owners after new agency investigations, an FDA warning and incorrect material safety data sheets were sent to hair salons.  The products under question are the Brazilian Blowout Acai Professional Smoothing Solution and Brasil Cacau Cadiveu which can release high amounts of formaldehyde during normal use.  As always, we recommend safety training to help…

Sept 25-Oct 1st is National Fireplace/Chimney Safety Week

Hello everyone!

Do you feel you lack health and safety awareness? Do you feel you don't want to be responsible for your workers accidents or even fatalities with serious consequences? Is your business taking a down turn because of…

September is here and many of us with fireplaces/stoves or even fire pits will be out cutting and gathering firewood for the cool days ahead. The fastest way to cut down dead trees and get that firewood is with a chainsaw. However owning and operating a chainsaw comes…

Anyone who's been in the safety business for any length of time knows that step one when dealing with any particular hazard or safety issue is to try to engineer away the hazard before you start looking at PPE and other possible solutions. In a nutshell what this means is that rather than purchase respirators for all your workers because a specific chemical is harmful, it is best to try to find alternate chemicals that could be used that aren't harmful. The same principle applies to any…

Forty years have passed since OSHA's establishment and it is now viewed as part of the tangle of requirements, regulations and standards that businesses must navigate to bring their products or services to the market. The question is : "How effective has OSHA been in reducing workplace accidents and injuries?"

The US Department of Labor posts annual numbers for work-related health incidents, reviewing the preceding year. The 2008 numbers, at the Bureau of Labor Statistic's website,…

A new white paper by Miller Pierce (http://millerpierce.com) "Top Ten Trends in the Safety Industry" provides and quick but extremely informative read for anyone involved in the field of safety.

It's a quick 4 pages that identifies each trend, briefly explains it and provides for each one a "bottom line" that explains what this means to safety professionals,…

Nail gun related injuries are incredibly common -- accounting for +/- 37,000 visits to the emergency room last year.  In an attempt to reduce this number, a new document from NIOSH and OSHA has been released which targets nail gun safety in the workplace.  Read the full article below...



Download the Nail Gun…

Does anyone remember how we used to work and do research before the internet? For safety professionals, the internet is an incredible resource. There is no need to create your own forms, no need to rewrite all the material and no need to reinvent the wheel.

Case in point, a FREE DOWNLOAD from www.safetyrisk.com that allows you to assess the risk factor associated with a…

Get OSHA 30 hour training online at Easy Safety School -- OSHA's new directive will establish uniform procedures for responding to complaints and incidents of violence in the workplace.  Also, inspections will be help for industries that are at high risk of work related violence.  These include social service work, healthcare and late-night retail…

With a quarter of a million workers in the USA involved in the manufacturing of concrete as well as everyone else who uses concrete, the unique health and safety challenges of concrete remain a very real problem.

The hazards are many and varied:

1. Cement Dust
   
   Cement dust is something that can cause its own set of health problems. It can cause irritation to the eyes, the throat, the nose and the lungs. It can also cause skin damage, from mild…

Driving in heavy fog is like driving with a blindfold on. Statistically it's the most dangerous driving hazard in existence. No matter how important the trip is, it's not worth gambling your life. Rain in most of our area recently has caused some foggy conditions. We are transitioning toward fall with colder morning and evening temperatures with the addition of any moisture can…

Every Friday we pass on a few articles, pictures, videos, infographics, etc. we enjoyed throughout the week in a “Best of the Week” post. Have a great weekend, all! Study: Workplace Fatigue Common, Costly

From: EHS Today

This study analyzed the relationship between health and productivity. The results are not surprising - nearly 40% of American workers experience fatigue,…

When speaking about occupational health and safety, we rarely think to include workplace violence. It has, however, ranked in the top four most common causes of death in the workplace for the past 15 years. In 2010, for example, out of the reported 4,547 fatalities in the workplace, 506 were attributed to workplace homicides.

According to the new OSHA webpage on workplace violence, some "2 million American workers…

Sometimes good things don't necessarily come in small packages. In this age of miniaturization, button batteries have become more and more common as replacements for the larger size batteries that have been around for decades. That's all fine and good except that parents don't realize that they are inadvertently leaving these batteries within easy reach of small children and that these button batteries are a potential health hazard.

Many remotes, for example, now…