Sunday, November 25, 2012
ASSE Joins Campaign to Improve Hearing ProtectionOccupational Health & Safety
Occupational Health & Safety: The American Society of Safety Engineers is taking steps to improve hearing safety for workers. Joining the 85-3 Campaign, the society will be working to make the 85 dBA (decibel) noise protection level the nationwide standard for hearing protection.
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3 comments:
Hearing is something that is often overlooked because our ears can handle a larger shock force without pain then they should. Because of that, people often don't realize they are damaging their hearing, and it's good to see that the acceptable dB rate is lowering to help that. As a possible sound designer, I want to preserve my ears, and I don't want to be working in places where my hearing could be legally adversely affected without any consequences. I hope people take away from this that even if you are not working, you should still be conscious of the pressure your ears are under.
Hearing what the people interested in sound technology/ sound design have to say about hearing protection, even from the comment above, is always unanimous, in a good way, it makes sense that people who want to design sound have to keep their ears the most sensitive and healthy for their projects and designs. My dad is a musician and I am sure he had listened to his fair share of loud music all through his life, he now (he says) because of that he has bad hearing, he can hear better in one ear than the other. I would always annoy me when my dad would tell me to turn the tv, or music lower, if he had trouble hearing it then it should be turned up, I always thought! But I was wrong- blasting sound feels great but it impacts you in ways you cannot immediately make note/ be conscious of, I know he just wanted to protect me/ my sister's ears. Its good to "hear" (pun) that strides are being taken to lower the dB rate, I also just hope that enforcement of ear protection can be emphasized also. I am happy to learn about this though, I have to remind myself more and more to protect me ears now!
Shop staff in particular are very susceptible to hearing damage and we make sure that people are aware of the danger. With that said lowering the decibel level is a great step in protection in theory. In practice there are so many carpenters and shop staff that disregarded the old standard, which means lowering the standard will help the people who are already doing the work to make sure that they keep their hearing but will not help people whom are disregarding that information. There are fixes in the standards and practices of individual shops that can be made to ensure that people are using hearing protection but until there are real consequences in the short term there will continue to be people who disregard their personal safety because they do not notice immediate problems with their hearing. Ben Carter has mentioned another part of this problem that you can address. By purchasing better quality tools and looking at how much noise and vibration they produce you can create engineered controls to limit the overall decibel level in the shop and make lighter duty hearing protection more effective. Safety is never reinforced enough and hearing protection is one of the largest culprits to be overlooked. Employers and shops need to make sure that they provide not only basic protective equipment but it should be in their mandate to make sure that they provide comfortable PPE especially for hearing protection because if it is not comfortable then it has less of a chance of being worn. We spend our hearing each time we go to a concert or a movie and we need to make sure that we spend that hearing doing something fun not spend it on a circular saw or router. Personal health and well being is a shared responsibility between employer and employee with the ultimate responsibility resting with the individual and with proper training and vigilant monitoring we can ensure that all of us can leave the shops and workplaces safe and sound at the end of each day.
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