In a competitive business world, where every action affects the natural environment, it is vital to be energy efficient. For employers, conserving energy is an ethical way to reduce costs. For employees, conserving energy at work can extend to personal life and impact cost reduction at home. While it’s every employer’s responsibility to think about how to make energy-efficient changes around the workplace, it’s also important that everyone in the organization be involved in this energy-saving initiative. Fortunately, there are simple measures that can be taken to ensure everyone is practicing energy conservation when possible.
Containers are the most common unit used to store and transport hazardous waste. They are often preferred over tanks and surface impoundments largely due to the ease with which they can be handled and their relative inexpensiveness. Containers are a good option for hazardous waste handlers who want to store, transport, and dispose of hazardous waste without changing the unit.
Before regulation under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA, containers were frequently mismanaged or abandoned. Some of the worst environmental disasters associated with hazardous wastes were caused by the failure of containers. When the abandoned containers became weathered or corroded, the hazardous contents were released, posing a far-reaching danger to human health and the environment. Additionally, many containers were not properly labeled or not labeled at all. As such, they posed hazards due to their “unknown” contents.
Consequently, properly managing containers of hazardous waste is a critical part of the RCRA regulatory system for handling hazardous wastes safely, while protecting the environment and the health and well-being of workers and of the public. Each handler of containers of hazardous waste plays an important role in this process.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) provides a barrier between employees and the hazards of their job. The right PPE, when properly used and maintained, can protect employees from the hazards involved in the emergency response tasks they perform, and it can help ensure they can go home safe and healthy at the end of their shift. But for PPE to protect employees properly in emergency situations involving hazardous substances or other safety and health hazards, they have to know how to select the right equipment for the job, understand its capabilities and limitations, use it properly, and remove it safely.
Compliance:
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) PPE standard at 29 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 1910.132(f)(2) requires employees to demonstrate an understanding of the training and the ability to use PPE properly. While OSHA doesn’t explicitly mandate hands-on training, practical demonstration and evaluation are often necessary to ensure compliance and the effectiveness of the training.
To supplement this training, employers are required to provide field experience to employees to comply with 29 CFR 1910.120(q)(6). Required training duration is based on the duties and function to be performed by each responder of an emergency response organization. Additionally, there must be an opportunity for interactive questions and answers with someone who is qualified in the subject matter that is being presented in the training.
This course covers what to expect and how to prepare for a Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) inspection by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inspector. This training is intended for managers, supervisors, and employees with job responsibilities in their employer’s SPCC Plan.
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.
If there’s an accident or injury at your workplace do you know what to do?
Do you have a plan in place if a disaster happens?
What do you do if a chemical
spill occurs?
Do your employees have proper training on equipment like fire extinguishers, fork lifts, or chainsaws?
TrainingToday’s Environment, Health, and Safety libraries include everything you need to increase awareness of safety and environmental best practices, achieve compliance with national OSHA and state workplace rules and regulations, and create the safest possible environment for employees.
If there’s an accident or injury at your workplace do you know what to do?
Do you have a plan in place if a disaster happens?
What do you do if a chemical
spill occurs?
Do your employees have proper training on equipment like fire extinguishers, fork lifts, or chainsaws?
TrainingToday’s Environment, Health, and Safety libraries include everything you need to increase awareness of safety and environmental best practices, achieve compliance with national OSHA and state workplace rules and regulations, and create the safest possible environment for employees.
The Environmental Compliance Training Library includes everything you need to understand and increase awareness of environmental management practices from asbestos awareness to water conservation. The library includes a strong a focus on hazardous waste, including container management, facility operation and maintenance, manifests, and health effects. Other issues covered include air contaminants, chemical hygiene, hazard communication, hazmat transportation, HAZWOPER, PPE, SPCC, stormwater, underground storage tanks, and universal waste.
OSHA’s Hazardous Waste Operation and Emergency Response Standard (HAZWOPER) calls for rigorous and ongoing employee training. TrainingToday’s HAZWOPER training library delivers everything you need to meet those requirements, with 17 individual easy-to-administer courses from PPE to Spills Clean-up to Reporting Requirements and more. Simply assign courses appropriate to individual employee responsibilities and TrainingToday takes care of the rest. Courses are compliant with new GHS standards.
