Healthcare facilities, such as hospitals, physicians’ offices, dental practices, blood banks, veterinary hospitals/clinics, and medical research facilities and laboratories, generate medical wastes. As a healthcare worker, you may be exposed to medical wastes on the job. For example, patient care workers, housekeepers, maintenance personnel, and others may all be involved in handling medical wastes or at least come in contact with these materials.
Some medical wastes can be hazardous to your health. This course is designed to explain the hazards of medical wastes, the precautions you can take to protect yourself from harmful exposures, and the procedures you must follow to protect yourself and your facility coworkers from the hazards of medical wastes.
Emergency situations involving damage to property or injury to co-workers can and do occur at facilities that handle hazardous wastes. This training session will focus on emergency response procedures required under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, regulations for personnel at hazardous waste large quantity generators, or LQGs, and hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities, or TSDFs. In addition, this session will address the actions you can take to help prevent or mitigate an emergency’s often devastating effects and describe the various emergencies that could potentially occur at your workplace and how to respond to them. The EPA regulations address the hazardous waste facility preparedness and prevention requirements for emergencies at 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) for LQGs at 40 CFR 262.250 to 262.256, for TSDFs at 40 CFR 264.30 to 264.37, and for hazardous waste small quantity generators, SQGs, at 40 CFR 262.16(b)(8) and 40 CFR 262.16(b)(9).
The session also applies to SQGs, although these generators are not required to have formal written training programs for their employees or a written contingency plan.
Note that this session does not address the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s, or OSHA’s, hazardous waste operations and emergency response, or HAZWOPER, or hazard communication requirements.
Working in a hazardous waste facility exposes you to numerous safety and health hazards. To prevent accidents and injuries, you must perform your job correctly and carefully. You must also understand the relationship between your job function and other functions within the facility.
While this course focuses on the responsibilities of hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities, or (TSDFs), and large quantity generators, or LQGs, of hazardous waste, all employees involved in hazardous waste management should be familiar with routine facility operations, waste acceptance policies and procedures, equipment maintenance requirements, and emergency preparedness, prevention, and response.
This training session discusses all these important topics to familiarize you with a facility’s hazardous waste management program and its emergency procedures so you can stay safe on the job.
This training course covers the principal elements of the regulatory requirements for how generators and treatment, storage, and disposal facilities, or TSDFs, must manage hazardous waste in the workplace. The course describes the different types of hazardous waste and how they must be identified, stored, inspected, and documented, as well as the actions workers should take to protect themselves and the workplace from the dangers of hazardous waste.
Today, we’re going to talk about the health effects of hazardous waste. Hazardous wastes are composed of substances that can be harmful to your health. Exposure to some hazardous wastes can cause serious illness, injury, or even death. However, these materials can be handled and disposed of safely if proper procedures are carefully followed. This training session will introduce you to the hazards of hazardous wastes and the steps to take to prevent harmful exposures. With adequate information about hazardous waste, you can minimize risks and protect your health on the job.
