#healthandsafety

Cleaning Chemical Safety Guidelines for Safe Use and Handling

Dale Allen

Jan 26, 2019
4 min

Cleaning Chemical Safety Guidelines for Safe Use and Handling

Every occupational hygienist can tell you how incredibly important it is to ensure your workplace is kept clean and hygienic. Keeping people safe is their highest priority. It should be yours too. Any of the chemicals you use as a cleaning business can cause harm to your cleaners. Even if you bought the 'green' version it doesn't automatically make it safe for them to come into contact with it. It's very likely that the green version contains only a slightly smaller amount o

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Top 5 COSHH Assessment Mistakes You May Be Making

Dale Allen

Dec 28, 2018
6 min

Top 5 COSHH Assessment Mistakes You May Be Making

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

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Safety Lapses Cost Lives and Maybe Your Business

Dale Allen

Nov 5, 2018
2 min

Safety Lapses Cost Lives and Maybe Your Business

Let me be clear right from the beginning here. I'm not just talking about you or your safety people cutting corners to save money and time. I'm also including those little things your employees may do. You know. Those tiny things that they think will make their work easier, but in fact, are often what lead to some of the messiest incidents that can happen in your workplace. Because they add up. And when the same person is cutting the same corner every day, it's going to take

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Afraid of Switching from Spreadsheets to Health & Safety Software?

Dale Allen

Oct 28, 2018
3 min

Afraid of Switching from Spreadsheets to Health & Safety Software?

Don't be. Continuing to use your usual spreadsheets could be costing your business thousands of pounds. Spreadsheets have been a part of 'business' for a very, very long time. You probably see them all the time. Spreadsheets detailing your company risk analysis, spreadsheets tracking employee training levels and spreadsheets detailing all of the minute details that go into your environmental, health and safety program. Unfortunately, spreadsheets are notorious for containi

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6 Tips for Improving Employee Motivation for Health and Safety

Dale Allen

Oct 8, 2018
5 min

6 Tips for Improving Employee Motivation for Health and Safety

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

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Can Cloud-Based Software Improve Your Chemical Safety Management?

Dale Allen

Jun 5, 2018
2 min

Can Cloud-Based Software Improve Your Chemical Safety Management?

You and I know that ensuring your people are safe from exposure to chemicals can be tedious and time-consuming. There are regulations in place - a lot of them - and meeting their standards can be a huge undertaking, especially when dealing with hazardous substances. Actually understanding the regulations and being able to show that you do by proving your company is fully compliant is difficult when there is so much information to take in. There are several pages worth of data

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6 Tips for Improving Employee Safety Culture

Dale Allen

May 30, 2018
4 min

6 Tips for Improving Employee Safety Culture

Hey, I'm Dale. I'm the founder of the International Association for Chemical Safety and I often get asked how I go about getting my staff more inclined to speak up when they have an accident or notice a hazard or risk that they may have inadvertently created. As an expert in chemical safety legislation and compliance I hold the great honour of being in a role where I have the power to positively influence the attitudes and behaviours of people across many different industries

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The Dangers of Mixing Bleach and Alcohol

Dale Allen

May 22, 2018
2 min

The Dangers of Mixing Bleach and Alcohol

Mixing chemicals is never a good idea, unless you know what you're doing and are fully prepared for the reaction you will get. But, did you know that mixing bleach with alcohol will create chloroform? In fact, any chlorinated compound that is reacted with any one of a wide range of organic molecules will create chloroform. This types of chemicals are often found stored close to each other in peoples homes and the dangers of mixing them, even accidentally, are very real. Somet

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Chemical Safety in the Pharmacology Sector

Dale Allen

Apr 30, 2018
2 min

Chemical Safety in the Pharmacology Sector

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

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How to Identify Risks Linked to and Reduce Occupational Skin Disorders

Dale Allen

Apr 24, 2018
2 min

How to Identify Risks Linked to and Reduce Occupational Skin Disorders

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

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How You Can Help the Worlds Plastic Problem

Dale Allen

Apr 20, 2018
3 min

How You Can Help the Worlds Plastic Problem

Plastic has been in use for many years across many different industries. We use it in pretty much everything that we produce, from cars to water pipes and houses to our mobile phones and even teabags. There are so many ways we can use plastic to make our lives easier. So, what's the problem? Well, there are a few answers to that question. First, there is just so much of it Globally we go through hundreds of thousands of plastic bags, bottles and other packaging every day. And

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Dale Allen

Apr 12, 2018
4 min

The Importance of Eye Protection

Eye related injuries are unfortunately a very common occurrence. Hundreds of people every day are rushed in to hospital to be treated for damage to their eyes, either through an injury they sustained at work or through a DIY job at home. There are even a few cases of serious damage caused by spending too much time working on digital devices. I often feel the tired eyes, blurry vision and headaches that come with Digital Eye Strain. Fortunately, there is a wide selection of pr

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4 Ways to Encourage Safety in the Workplace

Dale Allen

Apr 10, 2018
3 min

4 Ways to Encourage Safety in the Workplace

Having a strong safety program in place at work is essential. This program will inform your employees that you are properly able to ensure their safety while they're going through their daily work activities. It will also provide information on specific responsibilities and step-to-step work processes for certain jobs in your workplace. Your workplace safety program should be a constantly updated and easily accessible series of documents that can be referred to by anyone, at

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7 Ways to Reduce Exposure to Arsenic, Lead and Mercury

Dale Allen

Mar 27, 2018
5 min

7 Ways to Reduce Exposure to Arsenic, Lead and Mercury

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

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How to Ensure Chemical Safety in the Hospitality Sector

Dale Allen

Mar 16, 2018
3 min

How to Ensure Chemical Safety in the Hospitality Sector

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

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UK Businesses Fork Out Billions on Workplace Injuries

Dale Allen

Mar 13, 2018
4 min

UK Businesses Fork Out Billions on Workplace Injuries

I've been trying to prevent injuries and death in the work place for a long time now so it's shocking to see how many workers receive grievous injuries in their workplace from such hazards that may cause slips, trips and falls. I came across the results of the Labour Force Survey for last year and there were over 600,000+ injuries in workplaces across the UK, with the vast majority of those being due to a slip, trip or fall. How is it, in 2019, that over 600,000 people injure

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Apply Kitchen Safety to Your Children too

Dale Allen

Feb 23, 2018
2 min

Apply Kitchen Safety to Your Children too

Kitchens can be especially dangerous places. There are a plethora of sharp objects and cooking appliances that give off large amounts of heat. It's really important to practice good safety everywhere, but when it comes to the kitchen you should pay extra attention. Especially if you have young children. Here are 10 tips for ensuring safety in the kitchen: Make sure to put childproof locks on all cabinets, cupboards and cooking appliances. Keep any cloth materials like towels

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Dale Allen

Feb 21, 2018
2 min

Should We Stop Using Bisphenol A?

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

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The Dangers of Using Synthetically Scented Products

Dale Allen

Feb 15, 2018
2 min

The Dangers of Using Synthetically Scented Products

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

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COSHH and Reach Work Together to Regulate Chemical Safety

Dale Allen

Feb 12, 2018
2 min

COSHH and Reach Work Together to Regulate Chemical Safety

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

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