Weekes, a LEED AP, and VP at the Greenville, S.C.-based Weekes Construction, says his focus today is on working safely as much as it is the daily deadlines and demands of the job. That’s why he paid close attention when Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) passed its newest silica standards, which went into effect on Sept. 23.
8 comments:
Given the rapid scaling - back of regulations across many industries throughout the United States, it is good to see at least one federal organization that is choosing to protect the laborers of the nation, rather than allow them to come to harm. Silica particulates are one of those hidden dangers that come with fabrication jobs. The author explains that "According to OSHA research, inhaling silica dust can lead to silicosis, an incurable lung disease that can be deadly if severe enough. Too much silica exposure – which workers come into contact with via activities such as grinding, cutting and blasting materials like concrete, stone and brick – can also lead to lung cancer, kidney disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease." As members of the theatre industry, which allows for easy exposure on the production technology side, even unintentionally, to silica particulates, we should be extra careful to ensure that we follow these safety standards closely.
The most surprising sentence in this article for me was: “The new standards did not come without a push from some OSHA officials, who have been advocating for them for the last 20-plus years”. I was most surprised by this sentence because if it took twenty-plus years for this change to come about, I am wondering how long it would take for other things that should be OSHA Standards to be passed. This is a little bit of a scary idea. Reading that the standard when from 250 micrograms per cubic meter to 50 is pretty scary because this is 133% difference. That is a lot. It was interesting hearing the Evan Patrick talk about always wearing a dust mask. It was a helpful reminder about just how easy it is to protect yourself from lots of different types of toxins. I think this is a safety precaution that should be taken more seriously when working with different kinds of glues and paints while doing school projects. I don’t fault any of the teachers who have done a good job of explaining safety standards to use about PPE but I fault myself for not looking out for myself or reading the safety instructions as carefully as I should. This article was a helpful reminder to be safe and use dust masks and respirators.
This is a very important article and I am glad that OSHA is stepping up their game. I am always concerned with safety ever since I started to learn about the hazards and effects that I was personally able to encounter. This article speaks more specifically towards silica levels but also speaks to the general use. Respirators are often the last of safety equipment used in my experience and I think it should be used a lot more. My reasoning is that so many things cause particles and dust, etc. to enter the air and breathing anything other than the normal levels of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, etc. in the atmosphere is bad for your lungs, period. However, many feel they don’t need a dust mask for things like a table saw with a good dust collector system. That should be fine generally speaking but even as this article mentioned; grinding metal is a high exposure and dangerous thing for your lungs and many people don’t wear respirators when they should. With this, as I am going to be facing this task very soon, I am glad OSHA has noticed this as a problem and is working to fix it even if it did take twenty years to get done.
It's really good to see OSHA getting with the program on this particular issue, as I've always felt it was a somewhat overlooked hazard (at least before coming here to CMU). I personally feel very attached to this issue as I have experienced (somewhat minor) negative effects due to improper respirator and dust mask usage, where the next day I was legitimately having trouble breathing, and came down with a nasty respiratory cold in the weeks following. I probably got off lucky, knowing how toxic some of the materials we are exposed to can be, and I believe that the proper usage of dust masks and respirators is one of the most important parts of shop safety, right up there with eye and ear protection. So I'm really glad to see this issue getting some real attention from OSHA, and hope they continue to make our work safer so we can focus on enjoying it and making theater.
I think people are getting safer over time. Eye protection wasn’t always as obvious as it is now and I think respirators are the next thing. They are incredibly annoying to wear since they get hot and cover your mouth which, believe it or not, makes it hard to talk. I am sure there were similar complaints when eye glasses started being introduced widely. There is no question that respirators and dust masks are so important. I have often seen people walking through clouds of saw dust, or even working in clouds of sawdust without masks and it is obviously not how that should work. There are some nasty particles we encounter and safety first isn’t just about falling and cutting a finger, its about long term health which respirators are vital for. I am surely not saying I always were a mask when I should, but I like to think that if I felt like I really need one, that I would sacrifice comfort for health.
Having just talked about respirators in OSHA, this seems like an appropriate article to be published. I’m surprised we did not hear about the new recent regulations in that session, but this article pretty much reinforces everything Wayne said anyway about the dangers of silica and the need to always be properly protected by using face masks and respirators. I know a lot of people note the hassle of having to do a physical exam for respirator use, but in my opinion it is a great way to ensure people are healthy enough in general for the tasks at hand thus improving quality of life overall and not just in the breathing and lung category. I, for one, am not cleared to wear a respirator because my asthma makes my breathing volume and pressure too low to be able to sustain a regular breath rate through the masks. Knowing this, I can opt out of any potentially hazardous jobs with the right mindedness that I am only helping myself later on in life health-wise.
No one wants to breathe in harmful particles or have excess ones just sitting in their system clogging up the works. It is now becoming very standard as a "best practice" to be wearing dust masks whenever one is creating massive amounts of dust or other particulates in the shop. This is at the forefront of OSHA making new standards that enforce this in the workplace. Now granite this new standard under discussion concerns silica or rock based particles, but like most things in theatre nowadays ether we are ahead and ultra proactive about it, or we ignore it entirely until we are required to address it. Every year I see less and less fight being put up about wearing masks when doing work. I have found that the key is to make masks that are appropriate for the general level of things we do available. This doesn't mean that we should have them in an unlabeled bin under the shelf in the back of the room behind the random pile of things, but that they should be easy to get on ones way out the tool room and always in stock. This eliminates the "I thought we were out" and makes it a habit of grabbing a dust producing tool and a mask at the same time. I also have found that keeping some in a sealed container by many of the larger stationary dust prone tools can be helpful in preventing the "I have to sand this real quick." Doing these simple few things along with your spending a little money on your every labor to get better ones that they can use one for the whole day of work and thus not need to go through 20, makes it part of the culture much quicker. 10/10 all of us in the industry should be doing this better.
Safety is important! It's something we all know and we all care about but we don't always think on how to make ourselves safe at all times and what are the best ways in order to keep ourselves from harm. Ear and eye protection as well as gloves fall into a category of things that I would say are safety that we see immediate to our health and is therefore something that we stress and look after more carefully in a day to day basis. Respirators and dust masks however is something that we early ever think about as the more time goes on the more we see the issue and the problems that can occur from not using them. With age and experience comes wisdom and the can be something as simple as putting on a respirator when you should. I know it something that I don't always think about and something that in the past I have had times mixing up respirators and dust masks for false purposes just simply because it was "easier" or "quicker" but really the value of not having those issue is why we should do all of these safety precautions up front in the first place so that we don't have to worry about the repercussions later down the road.
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