Health & Safety Compliance

Wellness Programs that promote healthy eating, exercise, and community involvement are fairly common among businesses. But what about programs that promote emotional well-being?

Wellness is more than physical fitness. Wellness includes everything: the intellectual, spiritual, social, occupational, and emotional spheres of health.

But how can businesses and companies positively influence such tricky things as emotions?

Obviously, emotional well-being depends heavily upon other health spheres....

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations can be time consuming to correct, expensive, and bring a negative light to a company’s overall reputation. Repeat violations, or willful or knowing violations, can further compound these issues exponentially. Both agencies view repeat violations as a company’s indifference to environment and safety regulations in general and can put you in a high risk category. In fact, EPA and OSHA have a...

Join myself and Nicole Collett on Monday, September 30th at the 2013 National Safety Council Congress & Expo. We will be presenting "The Great Chicago Fire and Fire Prevention Plans". Our session #42 is 4:00-5:30pm. The breadth of important content of our presentation is OSHA's requirements related to Fire Prevention Plans but to make it interesting, and given the conference is in Chicago, we thought we'd give a little history lesson on the Great Chicago Fire.

August Mack’s presence in the Mid-Atlantic was established in 1994 with the opening of a Baltimore office. Then in 1998, Susan Burkett opened the office in southeast Pennsylvania to better serve the growing client base in Pennsylvania. Susan continues to serve clients in a corporate capacity as Principal Engineer for August Mack’s eCAP® Services. In its infancy, the Pennsylvania office provided environmental, health and safety compliance services to foundries, food companies, and metal products...

Over the years, the August Mack Pennsylvania office has expanded services to include compliance, environmental due diligence, site investigation, and remediation services.  Similar to the expansion of services, the client base has expanded and includes a wide variety of industrial and service industries. Numerous clients were served by the Pennsylvania office in 2012 and projects included compliance audits, MSDS database development and maintenance, litigation support, air permits, MACT...

March of 2012, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published a revision to the Hazard Communication (HAZCOM) standard (Title 29 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 1910.1200) which incorporated the requirements of the Globally Harmonized System for the Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS).  One of the changes in the revised HAZCOM standard is that material safety data sheets (MSDSs) are no longer required.  Instead, the employer is required to maintain safety data...

Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard (29 CFR 1910.147) that provides all of the requirements for the isolation of hazardous energy for industrial and research facilities. According to OSHA, an estimated 120 fatal accidents and 50,000 injuries are avoided each year because employers implement and enforce comprehensive LOTO programs. For those individuals who do sustain injuries from exposure to hazardous energy, an average of 24 days of...

Don't forget to register now for the August Mack webinar tomorrow (Mar. 21) at 10:00 a.m. on "Common Safety and Health Issues in Primary Metal Industries." According to OSHA, over the last decade Primary Metal Industries (PMI) has been in the top five manufacturing industries for fatalities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2006 the highest incident rates of non-fatal occupational injury and illness cases indicated that three of the top ten industries were in PMI and of the...

With OSHA implementing the GHS Standard, referred to as "HazCom 2012," it is important to start planning ahead to get your facility geared up for the change.  The first step is to know the basics.  You should get familiar with the 16-section Safety Data Sheet (SDS) format, which will replace the previous Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) format.  You should also become familiar with the new label pictograms and key deadlines for providing training to employees. 

Need help getting geared up?...

Process Safety Management (PSM) 29 CFR 1910.119 is a regulation promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to prevent the accidental release of hazardous chemicals that could result in catastrophic fires, explosions or toxic exposure.  Facilities that store materials included on the Highly Hazardous Chemical (HHC) list (Appendix A of the standard) in excess of associated thresholds are applicable to the PSM standard. The regulation also applies to flammable liquids...

A non-mandatory technical amendment taking effect Jan. 22 explains the basics of ensuring safe operations and discusses the roles of the chemical hygiene officer and others.

OSHA is has issued a technical amendment to the non-mandatory appendix in its standard on occupational exposure to hazardous chemicals in laboratories, 1910.1450, which is known as the OSHA Laboratory Standard. Published Jan. 22 in the Federal Register, the amendment takes effect upon publication. It was made in order...

In September 2008, August Mack’s eCAP® (Compliance Assurance Program) was formally qualified as a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) through the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 7. August Mack’s eCAP® program is an Environmental Health and Safety Management System (EMS) that utilizes a team of August Mack experts to routinely and methodically assess and maintain compliance at clients’ facilities. The innovative program includes much more than just...

OSHA has issued a technical amendment to the non-mandatory appendix in its standard on occupational exposure to chemicals in laboratories.  The amendment says a lab's Chemical Hygiene Plan must be readily available to workers and should include these topics:

• Individual chemical hygiene responsibilities
• Standard operating procedures
• Personal protective equipment, engineering controls and apparel
• Laboratory equipment
• Safety equipment/
• Chemical management
• Housekeeping
• Emergency procedures for accidents and...

Don't forget to register now for the August Mack webinar tomorrow (Jan. 31) at 10:00 a.m. This webinar will review the changes to the OSHA Hazard Communication standard (29 CFR 1910.12000) which were promulgated in March of 2012 to incorporate the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS). This includes new requirements for determining the hazard classification of chemicals, changes to container labels incorporating pictograms and signal words, changes to...

On Thursday March 21st at 10:00 a.m. August Mack will present a free webinar on "Common Safety and Health Issues in Primary Metal Industries." Register here to attend. According to OSHA, over the last decade Primary Metal Industries (PMI) has been in the top five manufacturing industries for fatalities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2006 the highest incident rates of non-fatal occupational injury and illness cases indicated that three of the top ten industries were in...

As we end our historical safety milestone blog post series, here are several milestones that are fairly recent considering  when we first started this series we were discussing things from the late 1800's.

In 2007 OSHA requires employers to pay for safety equipment, including earplugs, respirators, and protective gloves.

Just last year, the National Safety Council launches the Campbell Institute to foster a healthy and high-performing workforce around the globe.

Seems just like yesterday but all of these safety milestones of the 1990's are well over ten years old with the Bloodborne Pathogens standard being introduced over 20 years.

1991 - OSHA creates the Bloodborne Pathogens standard to protect workers from HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B.

1993 - OSHA issues standards for confined spaces to reduce injuries for workers who enter confined spaces.

1996 - OSHA issues construction scaffold safety standards to protect construction workers.

1997 - OSHA strengthens...

Register now to attend the free January 17th webinar on PSM: The 14 Elements and How They Apply to Your Facility. Process Safety Management (PSM) is detailed in OSHA regulation 29 CFR 1910.119, which is applicable to facilities storing greater than 10,000 pounds of flammable material or facilities storing materials in various quantities that are included on the Highly Hazardous Chemicals (HHC) list. This webinar will provide an overview of the 14 plan elements required under 29 CFR 1910 as well...

Employees have the right to a safe workplace. Employers have a responsibility to provide a safe work environment. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was passed to prevent workers from being killed or seriously harmed at work. The law requires that employers provide their employees with working conditions free of known dangers. The Act created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which sets and enforces protective workplace safety and health standards. Several of...

In 1981 OSHA issues Hearing Conversation Standards to provide hearing protection.

In 1984 the Bhopal Disaster kills 3800 people, leads to Community Awareness and Emergency Response Program formation and new OSHA chemical plant guidelines.

In 1988 OSHA introduces safety guidelines for meatpacking workers.