Carbon monoxide (CO) or carbon oxide is one of the toxic gases that are commonly found in chemical processing plant. It is used as raw material for other chemicals production or generated as by product from certain chemical processes.
Carbon monoxide is a colorless, poisonous (toxic), odorless and tasteless gas. It is non-irritating gas, which is lighter than air. (more…)
Hazard recognition-hazard control-and hazard assessment cycle is an ongoing process and should be improved continuously. Identified hazards are useless unless followed up and appropriate controls are provided. Hazard control ideally could eliminate hazards from the sources.
However, not all hazard controls have same capability in eliminating, reducing or controlling hazards. Some hazard controls are powerful than others. What we have to do is following hazard control hierarchy, which is mentioned below, ensuring that we have tried the most effective method to eliminate hazards.
1. Hazard elimination
2. Hazard reduction
3. Provide engineering controls
4. Using administrative controls
5. Wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Don’t try to jump to the lower hazard control in the above hierarchy when we are attempting to choose hazard control. We have to start from number 1, 2 and up to 5. Hazard control number 2 to 5 could not eliminate the hazards and it means the hazards still exist.
If hazard elimination, reduction and engineering control are not feasible, implementing administrative control, such as providing SOP, and appropriate personal protective equipment would be the choices. Next, we should evaluate their effectiveness on controlling hazards
In the next post, we will learn in more detail about the 5 hazard control methods above.
In this post, I am going to talk about safety video, which will show you about types of personal protective equipments.
In the hazard control hierarchy, usage of personal protective equipments (PPE) is the last protection choices. If engineering controls are neither technically impossible nor result incompletely hazard elimination, personal protective equipment shall be used.
If you are new in a chemical plant or chemical manufacturing operation, you need to follow training about personal protective equipment before you start working. It assures your safety.
To decide which safety equipment you should use, it depends on what kind of job you will do, source of hazard, nature of hazard, exposure time to the hazard and hazard exposure level. For instance, for protecting you from chemical hazards simply read the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) of the chemical to find out what personal protective equipments are recommended to use.
PPE comes in form of eye protection (eye goggle), hearing protection (ear plug), head protection (hard hat helmet), foot protection (safety shoes), face protection (face shield), etc. To understand more about the usage of PPE, you can watch the following personal protective equipment safety video.
