I recently was asked about a few of the air shipping rules of hazardous materials and IATA.  This happens over and over again.  Many people associate the term IATA with the regulatory body that oversees the shipment of hazardous materials by air.  People will ask which IATA regulation applies to this shipment?   The answer is NONE!

There are only 2 regulatory agencies involved in the shipment of hazardous materials by air.  Shipments hazardous materials by air domestically (within the US), are governed by the US DOT under 49 CFR, part 175.  Many of the same rules apply to shipping hazardous materials under 49 CFR, parts 100-185.  You must make certain about that the material(s) and quantity can be shipped by air.

If you are shipping hazardous materials by air internationally, the International Civil Aviation Organization or ICAO, is the regulatory agency, not IATA as most people believe.

 The International Air Transport Association or IATA publishes a book of ICAO regulations that many people refer to, but IATA is only an association of airlines NOT a regulatory body.  One of the biggest misconceptions I would get working for the National Safety Council, was that the Council was part of a federal agency that helped oversee safety.  Again, not true the NSC was an association of members similar to IATA. 

If an inspector walks in to your organization it best to know which agency oversee what type of shipment you are sending and what type of training you need.

EPA Announces Next Steps on Two Hazardous Waste Rules

EPA is announcing next steps on two hazardous waste rules to respond to concerns raised by stakeholders: the Definition of Solid Waste rule and the Emission Comparable Fuels rule. 

EPA is planning to hold a public meeting to discuss possible revisions to the Definition of Solid Waste (DSW) rule in response to an administrative petition asking the agency to reconsider and repeal the rule. The rule became effective on December 29, 2008. The meeting is planned for the end of June, and a Federal Register notice with the details of the meeting will be published in May. 

The DSW rule modified the regulations for recycling hazardous secondary materials to encourage the recycling of certain materials to help conserve resources. The rule includes conditions designed to ensure that the recycling of the materials is protective of human health and the environment. The rule also takes into account a series of opinions in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on the meaning of the term “discard,” which forms the basis of the definition of solid waste.

Since publication of the DSW rule, the Sierra Club has raised concerns about the effectiveness and protectiveness of the rule and has requested EPA stay the rule in an administrative petition. In addition, the Sierra Club and the American Petroleum Institute have filed judicial petitions for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Various industry groups have also filed letters opposing the Sierra Club’s administrative petition. 

EPA expects that stakeholders’ input at the public meeting will assist the agency in deciding whether to make revisions to the rule and how such revisions would further ensure that the rule appropriately and safely encourages resource conservation for those hazardous secondary materials that are conditionally excluded. The Federal Register notice announcing the meeting will raise specific questions for consideration, particularly related to reclamation that is not under the control of the generator. Any revisions to the rule would be made through the full public rulemaking process. 

EPA is also planning to propose a rule to withdraw the Emission Comparable Fuels (ECF) rule, which became effective on January 20, 2009. The proposal will present the agency’s concerns and request comments from the public after publication in the Federal Register, planned for November 2009. After evaluating the public comments, the EPA will make a decision on whether to repeal the exclusion.

The ECF rule removed regulatory costs by reclassifying certain manufacturing byproducts as non-wastes. ECF is fuel that is produced from a hazardous waste, but which generates emissions when burned in an industrial boiler that are comparable to emissions from burning fuel oil. The materials must also be stored under an elaborate set of requirements. The final rule has been criticized for allowing hazardous waste to evade the hazardous waste regulatory system, and also for being difficult to administer. Industry members have also criticized it because of the detailed and prescriptive conditions for reclassification, which they believe will limit the rule’s use. 

More information on the Definition of Solid Waste rule: http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/dsw/rulemaking.htm

More information on the Emission Comparable Fuels rule: http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/tsd/td/combust/compfuels/exclusion.htm

Ever wonder why OSHA was created?  Why does your company have to comply with all of these standards and who makes the rules?  Why must your employees attend osha safety courses and recieve osha certifications and osha 10 hour and osha 30 hour cards for construction and general industry?Employers and employees ask these questions all the time but when you stop to think about why the fereral government requires osha safety training, it is because it saves lives.  That is the bottom line, because of osha, workplace safety accidents and deaths have decreased substantially since it’s inception in 1971.  Since that year occupational deaths of been cut by 62% and injuries have declined by 42%.

OSHA Safety training is a must for our employees.  The number of job-site accidents are staggering and would be more staggering if it were not for osha safety training.  In 2005, there were 4.Over 2 million occupational injuries and illnesses among U.S. employees. Approximately 4.6 of every 100 employees experienced a job-related injury or illness, and in 2006, 5,703 employees lost their lives on the job.  Now take those numbers and double them and that is what you would have if we did not have OSHA regulating our workplace environment.

Many employers complain about the cost of OSHA compliance training but the fact is that given the statistics the cost of OSHA compliance and OSHA Safety Training is far less than the increases in accidental death and insurance benefits the company would pay otherwise.  Not to mention OSHA regulations create a much safer work environment for employees.

The cost of OSHA compliance is far less than the cost of non-compliance.  OSHA penalties range from $0 to $70,000, depending upon how likely the violation is to result in serious harm to employees. Other-than-serious violations often carry no penalties but may result in penalties of up to $7,000. Serious violations may have penalties up to $7,000. Repeat and willful violations may have penalties as high as $70,000. Penalties may be discounted if an employer has a small number of employees, has demonstrated good faith, or has few or no previous violations.

The Health and Safety of our workplace should be a priority to every employer.  OSHA Training provides an avenue of education for employers and employees to share in the responsibility we all have to create a safe and bright working future for our families.

AIHA Asks OSHA to Lower Noise Exposure PEL

EHS Today, reported by Laura Walter 

In an April 28 letter to OSHA Acting Assistant Secretary Jordan Barab, American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) President Lindsay E. Booher asked OSHA to take immediate action to lower the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) for occupational noise exposure.

AIHA requested the PEL to be lowered to 85 dBA (as an 8-hour time-weight average) and to adopt the 3 dB exchange rate, changes AIHA “strongly believes” are appropriate for both general industry and construction standards.

“One of the greatest challenges and concerns we now face in the United States is the hearing loss that is occurring in our work force,” Booher wrote. “Over 30 million workers are exposed to hazardous levels of noise, and noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most common occupational diseases. Such hearing loss significantly affects the ability to communicate and negatively impacts a worker’s quality of life.”

According to the letter, even a compliant hearing conservation program – where workers are exposed up to 90 dBA TWA with no hearing protection – “will yield up to 26 percent excess risk of material hearing impairment over the course of a working lifetime.” Lowering the PEL to 85 dBA, however, could reduce the number of workers at risk by at least one half.

“The vast majority of the nations of the world regulate workers’ noise exposures at lower levels than the U.S. In fact, the U.S. is one of only two nations that still uses the 90 dBA PEL and is one of only three nations that uses the 5 dB exchange rate,” Booher wrote. “As a result, American workers are allowed exposure to noise levels that would result in more hearing loss than the rest of the world.”

The letter also pointed out that many agencies and organization in the United States use or recommend the lower exposure limit, including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH). Furthermore, lowering the PEL could help streamline hearing conservation program management by adopting a single threshold for all engineering controls, training, hearing protection and hearing conservation programs.

“AIHA urges OSHA to take immediate action on this issue to ensure that American workers are afforded the same level of protection from hazardous noise that the majority of the world’s nation provide their workers,” Booher wrote.

“Behavior Based Safety” Programs by Jim Howe, Assistant Director of the UAW Health and Safety Department

“Behavior based safety” refers to a wide range of programs which focus almost entirely on changing the behavior of workers to prevent occupational injuries and illnesses. The programs are based on the false claim that the overwhelming majority of injuries and illnesses are the result of “unsafe acts” by workers.
The first step is listing problem worker behaviors. Next inspectors are selected to monitor the work activities of workers. Most programs use hourly workers as inspectors to monitor their fellow workers, undermining union solidarity.

A BAD OLD IDEA
Although “behavior based safety” is being promoted as a modem concept, it originated with the work of H. W. Heinrich at the Travelers Insurance Company in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Heinrich conducted “research” on thousands of insurance and injury/illness reports written by corporate supervisors. The reports blamed the workers, so-called “man failure” in the jargon of the time, for 73% of the accidents. Heinrich revised this figure upwards to conclude that 88% of industrial accidents could be blamed on workers.   Heinrich claimed that accidents result from “undesirable traits of character … passed along through inheritance” and the fault of workers who commit unsafe acts. Management-side safety professionals have based their work on Heinrich’s faulty theories ever since.

WHY IT’S POPULAR
Managers like behavior based safety because it shifts responsibility for health and safety to the workers and does not require significant change in the work process, engineering design or management system.   Companies selling behavior based safety programs claim the number of lost workdays drops with these programs. Lost time accidents are known to be the least reliable measures in determining the effectiveness of a health and safety program since lost workdays rates are mostly dependent on a company’s ability to put injured workers on light duty.   Proponents also claim behavior based safety is less expensive because management can use current workers to identify hazards rather than employing health and safety professionals. This claim leaves out the cost of training workers to recognize hazards.

THE REAL CAUSES
Injuries and illnesses are caused by exposure to hazards. Hazards include any aspect of technology or activity that produces risk. Injuries and illnesses occur when our bodies come in contact with levels of energy or toxic material that are greater than the threshold which our bodies can stand. The greater the amount of energy or the more toxic the material, the greater the severity of injury or illness. The probability of incidents is mostly dependent on the duration and frequency of exposure.   In 1950 the National Safety Council began describing a hierarchy of controls to apply when reducing and eliminating hazards. The hierarchy is accepted worldwide. Proponents of behavior based safety programs don’t support it because it contradicts their theory that 95% of accidents are caused by unsafe acts of workers.   Behavior based programs implement the least effective, lowest level controls, rather than controlling hazards at the source. A consumer example illustrates the vital role of safety standards. Manufacturers bitterly fought passage of the Refrigerator Safety Act which eliminated locks on refrigerator doors and established a very low amount of force needed to push open the door from the inside. Manufacturers claimed parents were the problem. The act passed. No child has died in a refrigerator designed since enactment of the standards.

FEAR & LOATHING AT WORK
Behavior based safety does not result in any real cost advantage because they focus on the actions of the worker, where change is most costly and the benefit is the least. Eliminating toxic material or installing proper ventilation, for example, is likely to cost less and be more effective than purchasing respirators for all workers, doing respirator fit testing, worker training, and respirator maintenance, medical exams, compliance inspections and routine environmental monitoring.   Behavior based safety programs drive problems underground, inject fear into the workplace and discourage workers from reporting illnesses and injuries. Workers know they will be blamed when they get hurt because management claims unsafe acts cause all injuries. The programs undermine union solidarity by forcing workers to monitor each other.   To fulfill the promise of a safe and healthy workplace for every American, it is the design of work process and work product that must be changed to prevent problems.   When carefully analyzed, behavior based safety programs do not deliver on any of their promises. They do not improve safety, in fact they increase the likelihood of workers being exposed to serious health and safety hazards by focusing on the least reliable methods for protecting workers. They do not save money. Worst of all, they are based on an assumption the workplace doesn’t need to be redesigned and that as workers we don’t care about our own safety and need to be bribed or bullied to work safely.