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Employee training is both an essential feature of any workplace safety program and a constant challenge for safety professionals. To find out more about effective safety training, BLR® talked with Jeffrey Dennis, a certified safety professional and president of Industrial Safety Solutions, Inc., a safety, environmental, and industrial hygiene consulting firm located in Birmingham, Alabama. […]
Defining responsibility for EPCRA compliance on a site can often lead to questions that apply only to that particular situation or event. One such situation is that of chemicals brought on a site by contractors hired to perform work and where reporting responsibility lies—with the facility owner/operator or with the contractor. According to the Environmental […]
One of the most confusing exemptions under EPCRA is that for “routine agricultural use” (Section 311(e)(5)) under Sections 311 and 312, which cover Safety Data Sheet (SDS) reporting and Tier I/Tier II Inventory reporting, respectively. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the exemption is “designed to eliminate the reporting of fertilizers, pesticides, and other […]
By Emily Clark, Safety Editor With OSHA primed with funds for enforcement in 2014, it’s wise for employers to closely examine workplace compliance with OSHA standards. The latest budget signed into law by President Obama includes $552.2 million in funding for OSHA, including approximately $208 million for enforcement. Although the total amount falls $18.3 million […]
By Emily Clark, Safety Editor OSHA has released its annual inspection plan under the Site-Specific Targeting Program (SST). Will your establishment be the target of one of these inspections? Intended to focus enforcement resources on high-hazard industries, the SST plan targets high-hazard, nonconstruction workplaces with 20 or more workers and is based on data collected […]
Spring has sprung, so your employees may be dusting off the winter cobwebs and tackling strenuous home tasks, such as spring cleaning and gardening. In today’s Advisor, we give guidance on conducting effective training for off-the-job safety. Would it surprise you to know that fewer workers are injured or killed at work than away from […]
Organizations with strong safety cultures tend to experience low levels of risky behavior and low accident rates, turnover, and absenteeism as well as high productivity. To strengthen your safety culture, here’s a list of suggestions: Give away ownership. In the strongest safety cultures, everyone feels responsible for safety. A worker who notices another worker without […]
In February 2014 alone, the EPA announced enforcement actions against 37 contractors and training providers nationwide for failure to comply with requirements of the Lead-Based Paint RRP Rule. The RRP Rule requires that contractors that work on pre-1978 dwellings and child-occupied facilities be trained and certified to use lead-safe work practices. In February 2014 alone, […]
Does your safety management program meet all of the following criteria? It should.
Even as more colleges and universities add “sustainable” degree programs, they are also seeing the light when it comes to their own waste management practices. One of these is American University (AU), in Washington D.C., where the zero waste mantra became a fight song in 2010 when the school adopted a 100% Zero Waste Policy. […]