If there are hazardous substances present in your workplace, then you are putting peoples health at risk. As the employer, it's your duty under COSHH to adequately control any risk, prevent or reduce exposure, and provide your workers with enough information and training to allow them to stay safe while working for you. The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002 are a set of legal directives that require employers to control those substances which

Unfortunately, even today, there are a lot of employers who still don't understand the COSHH regulations and what is required of them. Employers whose company uses dangerous chemicals, or produces hazardous substances through a work process, are required to perform COSHH assessments on every one of those work activities. However, they get confused by the assessment process and often use inadequate assessment techniques. This usually means that the control measures they decide

There will come a time when your commercial cleaning business is contacted by a potential client who needs you to take on a not-so-general cleaning operation. There has been an incident and there are biohazardous substances involved, likely including human waste or bodily fluids. It's a job nobody really wants, but how you handle it is extremely important. But first, what is a biohazard? A biological hazard is any biological material that presents a threat to human health. Th

It will come as no surprise that the majority of workplaces there are in the world use chemicals, or somehow produce other hazardous substances. Chemical safety is one of the biggest hurdles business' face and it becomes more complicated as the size of your workplace grows. Chemicals can be very dangerous, but they also enable us to create many things we would never have been able to, otherwise. Hazardous substances created through your work processes, however, are just dange

COSHH was created to protect people from hazardous substances, but who is responsible for ensuring it happens? The easy answer is.. Everybody! The employer's COSHH responsibilties Yes, if you're the employer, then the onus is mostly on you. You must not only make sure everybody can do their work safely, but also make sure they are all doing their part to abide by the COSHH regulations. You will carry out COSHH risk assessments throughout your site, installing control measur

Based on some quick google wizardry (because my maths is apparently terrible) I found that the average person will spend over 82, 000 hours of their lives at work. That's more than 3, 416 days. Considering you spend such an obscene amount of your time at work it should come as no surprise that the environment you work in has a massive impact on your life and the lives of your employees. Your safety, health and well-being are at risk if your work environment isn't properly con

When you walk into a bar, a restaurant or your local all you can eat catering establishment the first thing you think about is COSHH and chemical safety, right? No? Unfortunately, it's often the case that the establishment itself also overlooks many risks associated with catering work and the chemicals used later to ensure the place is thoroughly cleansed. What are the risks? Many of the products used in the catering industry contain something that could potentially cause adv

If you work as a pharmacist you'll be used to clean working environments, where everything is in it's proper place, everyone is generally careful, there is little noise and less air pollution. Sounds pretty hazard free, right? Well, apart from your usual hazards, like electricity hazards or trip hazards, pharmacists also need to be aware of the risks they're exposing themselves to when working with the chemicals they prescribe to patients. If a spillage occurs or there is a c

Skins disorders can be a bit of a worry for some businesses. If you're working in a place that deals with handling and transporting hazardous substances, working inside machinery or on other contaminated surfaces then it can be difficult to fully protect all of a persons skin all of the time. Especially when that person is in such frequent contact with chemicals, even when cleaning your hands you're using a substance (or substances) that could cause your skin to dry out which

Chemical spills are a fairly common incident and they can happen at any time. They usually happen due to a failed or improperly closed container, or during transport via a dropped or damaged load. Fortunately, they're one of the easier hazards to contain and clean up but there are chemicals that are more dangerous than others and they require a more careful approach to control. It's very important to be able to quickly identify the chemical that is spilled as it may contain h

It's amazing how far health and safety has come over the last few decades, especially chemical safety. We still use countless chemical compounds in many industries, and thankfully, there are far less incidents involving chemicals than ever before. In the past, however, there were many accidents and injuries involving chemicals. The thing is, back then we had no idea how dangerous to human health some of these chemicals really are. From fumes of toxic compounds to chemical exp

Silica is another one of those things that is all around us without us really knowing it. It's got a plethora of applications and is used widely throughout many industries around the world. It's quite likely that you've seen silica out there in nature as it normally exists, as quartz, but it's also one of Mother Nature's main ingredients for sand in many places around the world as well as being the second most abundant mineral is our planets crust. Working with silica, or in

While it's true that governments around the world have already begun to take action against the use of arsenic, mercury and lead, it's also true that these toxic heavy metals have already seeped into the ground around us and worked their way into our food chains. The concerns All three of these heavy metals are highly toxic to human health and cause a very wide range of detrimental effects on our bodies, especially in young children. Some of these health problems only occur a

When you're a kid, your bedroom is your sanctuary. It's where you sleep, it's where you feel safe and it's where you begin to face your fears of monsters and the darkness. As a parent though, it pays to be observant of what is lying around in your children's rooms. There are usually several things lying around in kids bedrooms so there are a few risks to keep in mind when arranging their furniture, electronics (when they're old enough) and toys. Check out these 20 tips, cover

If you work in the hospitality business you'll know that the safety of your guests, and the cleanliness of your hotel is vitally important. Common cleaning products are often disregarded as low risk but these products are still chemicals and they're extremely bad for human health, if handled or stored incorrectly. Even the most common products are, or have, chemicals in them that can cause respiratory problems, skin and eye irritation and chemical burns. If they happen to be

Hey guys. I've written a lot about potential risks around the workplace, but what does risk actually mean? It's important to understand that risk is not a hazard, even though (for some reason) they have become kind of synonymous. They do not mean the same thing! A hazard is something that may become a source of harm or have detrimental health effects on people. Risk is the probability of a person or persons being harmed or suffering those detrimental health effects. Here's an

Fires unfortunately occur in homes all the time. It’s important that we know what to do if a fire breaks out in our home, but it’s also essential to know how to prevent a fire from happening in the first place. Listed below are some tips to follow to ensure the safety of you, your family, and your home. Fire Safety Tips Talk to your family about an escape plan if a fire were to ever break out in your home. Know where you need to escape through and where you’d meet everyone on

Hey guys. Over the last few weeks I've posted some articles on hazardous substances that are, or could potentially be, too big a risk to human health to continue using. Today, I'd like to dig a little deeper into Bisphenol A, or BPA. Over recent years BPA has been thrust into the public eye due to its apparent links to some pretty serious health problems, but it's been around for a lot longer. It was first synthesized in 1891. It was only in the '50's that manufacturers star

Our health, and the increasingly fragile health of our environment, has been at risk for a while now from an unexpected quarter. Most of the products we use around our homes or offices to clean or improve the smell of a dirty, dusty workplace are scented. And that's great. What's not great is that fact that we get these scented products through creating a synthetic chemicals. Chemicals like: Galaxolide (or 1,3,4,6,7,8-hexahydro-4,6,6,7,8,8,-hexamethyl-cyclopenta[g]benzopyran

Both COSHH and REACH both call for risk assessments to be taken, just at different times and by different people.