Risk in the workplace- Safety

When you think of risk assesment, it is common to think of the actual job at hand and how the environment can be affected such as a landfill that leaches to the groundwater, chemiclas from a wastepile that volatize into the atmosphere or soil that becomes contaminated from a spill. All of these things affect the environemnt and they are usually the focal point when doing an ESA (Environmetnal Site Assessment). But something commonly overlooked is worker safety. This could be from becoming complacent in your duties, improper training, lack of knowledge or simply thinking "nothing will happen". Often, when tasked with the cleanup of a spill or a sampling procedure, the focus shifts to the job at hand and away from worker protection. For instance, if you were to visit a site and assess it for hazards are you prepared for what you may find? For example, do you have the proper PPE, respirator if needed, etc. Are you practicing the "buddy system"? Would you know what to do in the event of an accident? These are all questions to ask prior to beginnig a project.

The nature of environmental work can often include personal safety hazards. While intentions are good, sometimes people tend to "jump in" without first assessing all hazards and ultimately leading to delays in completing the task at hand or worse, someone getting hurt. A good practice is to perform a job safety analysis and risk assessment prior to each job being performed. All personnel should be aware of applicable OSHA standards as no job has a safety guarantee of 100%.

Risk Assessment involves several steps including identifying the hazard(s), assessing the toxicity and exposure levels, characterization and communication of the risk(s) and often an ecological assessment. Each step is equally important and must be given careful consideration.

Some common workplace hazards (defined as something that can cause harm) that need careful risk assesment (which is the combination of probablilty & severity of the hazards) are chemical and biological hazards, physical hazards and emotional hazards (stress, harrassment, ect.).

If you think about it, there is risk to basically everything you do, not just pertaining to the environment, site remediation and waste disposal. It is up to the worker to weigh the risks and arrive at a decision that is effective without compromising safety.