Get leadership buy-in on this year’s safety initiatives. This helpful guide lays out the what, when, who, and how to effectively communicate the benefits of advancing your organization’s safety program to protect workers and the bottom line.
EHS Hotline allows subscribers to submit questions and receive timely, thorough, and plain-English answers from our team of experts—complete with resources and references. This question focuses on fit tests for employees who choose to wear respirators.
Many industries deploy scaffolding to get work done, specifically in construction, where millions of employees use scaffolding on a regular basis. According to OSHA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) reported 52 fatal falls to lower levels from scaffolding in 2021, and in FY 2022, scaffolding citations were listed at number five on OSHA’s top 10 most-violated workplace standards.
Some of the most crucial safety tools you can give your workers are education and employee training.
When employers provide portable fire extinguishers for their employees to use in the workplace, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires those employers to mount, locate, and identify the fire extinguishers so employees can quickly and safely access them. Under OSHA’s portable fire extinguishers standard, 29 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 1910.157, there are several specific requirements for the placement and setup of portable fire extinguishers. It’s crucial that you follow these requirements to stay in compliance with the standard and avoid any citations.
A handful of best practices and helpful tools can make most safety-related tasks more manageable. To see which of these measures may benefit you, consider the following seven things you don’t want to do—practices that could be making environment, health, and safety (EHS) practices more difficult than they need to be.
The biggest workplace danger may not be as obvious as heavy machinery, ladders, or hazardous chemicals. It can lie in the risks posed by worker fatigue and sleep-deprived employees.
This article will cover everything you need to know about lockout/tagout, including how to build a rock-solid program and avoid incidents, as well as Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fines. Whether you’re very familiar with lockout/tagout procedures already or are just learning about it, this article will have something for you. What is lockout/tagout? […]
BLR is powered by our team of environment, health, and safety experts. Using their combined experience of 100+ years, our experts answer your questions, develop training courses, resources and guidance documents, and make real-time updates as regulations change.
Employees across America service machines every day, which can be dangerous if the correct procedures aren’t followed, as was the case with the Bumblebee Tuna tragedy. Many serious injuries, even fatalities, have occurred when workers thought a machine they were servicing, or its power source, was turned off. Machines can unexpectedly start up because of stored energy that wasn’t properly released or because another employee didn’t realize it wasn’t safe to turn on. These types of incidents can be avoided by lockout/tagout (LOTO), which disables the equipment and prevents the release of hazardous energy while service and maintenance are performed.