Tag: Weekly Safety Message 30

The Four Routes of Entry of Hazardous Chemicals (Safety Talk)

Chemicals exist on virtually every single worksite. Many chemicals used on the job are hazardous to humans depending on how an individual comes into contact with them as well as the amount of the chemical they are exposed to. Employees need to understand the chemicals they are exposed to and the possible routes of entry. There are four ways a chemical or substance can enter the human body. These four routes of exposure include inhalation, absorption, ingestion, and injection.

The Four Routes of Entry
(source: www.ehs.unl.edu)

1. Inhalation– Inhalation is the most common route of entry a person comes into contact with a chemical. Once inhaled, chemicals are either exhaled or deposited in the respiratory tract. Upon contact with tissue in the upper respiratory tract or lungs, chemicals may cause health effects ranging from simple irritation to severe tissue destruction. The chemical can also go onto affecting organs that are sensitive to the chemical.

2. Absorption– Getting chemicals onto the skin or eyes can result in redness and irritation all the way to severe destruction of tissue or blindness. The eyes are especially sensitive to chemicals. Some chemicals have the ability to pass through the skin and get into the bloodstream of a victim. This can lead to systemic problems in the organs.

3. Ingestion– Chemicals that inadvertently get into the mouth and are swallowed do not generally harm the gastrointestinal tract itself unless they are irritating or corrosive. Some chemicals can be absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract, where they enter the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, they can cause damage to the organs.

4. Injection– Though not common, injection of chemicals into the body can occur. A sharp object can be contaminated with a chemical or substance and penetrate the skin. The chemical is then in the body and can make its way into the bloodstream, where it can damage organs or other tissue.

Safe Work Practices When Working with Chemicals

• Know the chemicals you are working with. Read the SDS to understand the safe handling procedures and what to do if you come into contact with the chemical.
• Eliminate chemical hazards where possible. Do not use extremely hazardous chemicals unless absolutely necessary. Substitute a less hazardous chemical in place of a more hazardous chemical.
• Engineer chemical hazards out of the workplace. Engineering controls include ventilation such as fans, barriers to create distance, or a shield from chemicals, filters, etc.
• Wear the correct PPE to protect yourself from the chemical. PPE such as respirators, goggles, a face shield, chemical gloves, and a lab coat are some examples of creating barriers between your body and a chemical.

Discussion point

Also, think about your family. If you are not practicing good hygiene, you could be bringing chemicals home with you and exposing family members to them. For example, there is lead dust on the floor of a work area you are often in. You walk through the floor all day, and then when you go home, you do not take off your shoes, and you walk around on your carpet. Your baby son crawls on the carpet, inhaling and possibly ingesting the lead dust leading to health problems for him.

Take preventive measures to clean your clothes and other items that you take home with you.

Hazardous Chemicals- Four Routes of Entry

Habits and Safety

We all have habits that we follow on a daily or weekly basis. These habits have a major effect on our life. They also affect the choices we make at work. The choice to follow a safety procedure on any given day could be affected by a habit you have had for years.

Your Daily Habits

Think about the habits you follow every single day. Start with waking up. Did you hit the snooze button once or twice? Do you do this every day? What about breakfast? Did you cook in the house, or did you stop at the same gas station you do every day to grab a quick bite to eat? Most likely, the choices that you have made from the point you woke up, to right now in this safety meeting, are the same choices you make every single day. These daily choices are your habits.

How Habits Work

According to Charles Duhigg, who is the author of the book The Power of Habit, there is a “habit loop.” The habit loop he describes in his book is a three-part process. The first part of the process is the cue or trigger, the second is the routine or behavior itself, and the third is the reward.

Let us take the example of you repeatedly hitting the snooze button and look at it as a bad habit you want to break. We will discuss the habit by looking at Duhigg’s habit loop. The trigger of this habit would be your alarm going off in the morning. While the alarm is blaring, your mind tells you it is okay to hit the snooze button and continue sleeping because, in the past, you have done it. Hitting the snooze button would be the behavior. The reward would be getting more sleep. To break this habit, you would need to change one of the three components.

Looking at the routine first, maybe changing the location of your alarm to a location where you would have to get out of bed would work in breaking the habit. The alarm going off is still the trigger, but you have changed the routine by having to physically get out of bed, making it less likely you will go back to sleep. Another option to help break the habit is experiencing a different reward which would be having more time in the morning. By not hitting the snooze button repeatedly, you will experience a new reward of more time and less rush in the mornings before work. This reward alone over time may lead you to curve the habit of hitting snooze.

Not all habits are easy to break, but you get the point.

Habits and Safety on the Job

Your habits may be leading you to consistently take shortcuts and not follow safety procedures. Are there certain safety procedures you always follow and others that you rarely follow? For example, you are a welder, and every single day you complete your JSA, but many days there are times you choose not to lower your helmet while welding. Why do you choose to follow one safety procedure but not the other? Maybe you complete your JSA every day because you have to turn it in at the end of the day, and you have learned that it gets reviewed.

The reward would be not getting disciplined by a supervisor, so you choose to do the JSA every day. On the other hand, you choose not to lower your welding helmet because it is hard to see through, and you know supervisors rarely enter your work area. The reward is that you feel it is quicker to do the task, you can see better, and you have not been injured yet. In your mind, there is no consequence that will most likely come that is more negative than the reward you receive from not putting the helmet down, so you continue the behavior.

Summary

Pay attention to the habits you hold on to and how they affect you daily. How many of these habits are positive ones, and how many are negative? Look at the choices you make at work, and if they lead to negative behaviors, then look at changing them. By addressing the trigger or experiencing a different reward for your behaviors, you may find a way to change bad habits.

Habits and Safety

Rationalizing Unsafe Choices Safety Talk

Making the decision to follow every single safety rule or procedure does not come naturally to us. We constantly have to work towards making the right decisions every single day. Many times individuals find ways to rationalize not working safely. It is important for each worker to recognize this error trap and address it when it arises.

Why We Rationalize Unsafe Choices

For the most part, we all know what the right choice is when it comes to safety during a specific work task. Safety training, policies, procedures, labels, etc., all communicate what needs to be done in order to mitigate hazards and work safely. The problem is, there are many factors that affect whether or not we want to make the right decisions at a given moment. A few of these factors include:

• Time pressure
• Lack of supervision around
• Lack of enforcement of rules
• Energy levels
• Mood

Individuals facing one or more of these factors will use them to rationalize to themselves why a certain safety rule does not need to be followed. For example, “I forgot my fall protection, but it will only take a minute to go up and right back down, so I will be fine.” We have all rationalized poor choices- whether it was choosing not to wear fall protection or rationalizing hitting snooze seven times before getting out of bed.

“It is the Normal Thing to Do”

When there are other people around who are not making the right choices when it comes to safety, it becomes the “normal” thing to do despite not being the correct thing to do. When the norm is working unsafe, it makes it difficult for even the individuals who want to work safely to do so. Do not rely on a supervisor or safety person to have to tell you to do the right thing. Make the choice to do what is right despite what others may be doing.

Summary

Recognize when you are falling into the trap of rationalizing a poor decision, whether that is in your personal life or while on the job. Fight the urge to make the easy decision. Be a worker who follows the rules and helps reinforce a norm of adhering to safe work practices and procedures.

Discussion point: What is an example of rationalizing a decision to work unsafe?

Rationalizing Unsafe Choices

 John Jacobs

 Confined Space

• Oxygen-deficient atmospheres
• Flammable atmospheres
• Toxic atmospheres
• Mechanical or physical hazards
• Loose materials that can engulf or smother

• Lack of adequate ventilation can cause the atmosphere to become life threatening because of harmful gases.
• The oxygen content of the air can drop below the level required for human life.
• Sometimes a confined space is deliberately filled with nitrogen as a fire prevention technique. Nitrogen cannot sustain human life, so you must use respiratory protection.
• Many gases are explosive and can be set off by a spark.
• Even dust is an explosion hazard in a confined space. Finely-ground materials such as grain, fibers and plastics can explode upon ignition.
• Confined spaces often have physical hazards, such as moving equipment and machinery.
• Tanks and other enclosed confined spaces can be filled with materials unless the flow process for filling it is controlled.