Eye protection in the workplace is an essential part of the growing health and safety issues seen across all Australian industries.

WorkCover NSW has published a safety alert after a worker suffered fatal injuries when a plenum made from EPS panels collapsed while he was working in a blast freezer.

Safe Work Australia, an Australian Government statutory agency, has released a research report on carbon nanotubes.

The Model Work Health and Safety Act will commence in each jurisdiction in Australia from 1 January 2012. A key change to be made by the Model Act will be to move away from reliance on the employment relationship as the determinant of who has duties and obligations and who is to be protected from risks to their health or safety.

Most of us would agree that there is no place for illicit drugs in the workplace. However, testing for drug use in the workplace remains a hotly debated topic. Proponents say it reduces risks in the workplace, while opponents say it is an imposition on workers’ private lives. Amidst the extremes, there has to be a workable solution.

The following article gives guidelines for choosing the right PID for particular applications.

BPO Ltd of Hamilton, New Zealand, environmental consultants, purchased a confined space harness, rig and gas detector back in 2001 because it was a requirement of one of their clients. The company undertook confined space training to the AS/NZS standards for the same reason. BPO saw the equipment and procedures more as a competitive edge rather than as a necessity and, for this reason, always followed the procedures and used the equipment. The equipment was always looked after and inspection certificates were kept current. At the time, many companies regarded the whole confined space thing as a bit of an overreaction to the Aquatec disaster in Auckland.

It is naive to think employers are going to spend money on anything that is not justified, including OHS, and practitioners in this field need to learn to present a powerful cost-benefit analysis to management. OHS practitioners who ‘do their homework’ and speak the ‘language of management’ will be able to attract funding for occupational health and safety initiatives.

The European Commission has extended the deadline for the transition from standard EN 954-1 to standards EN ISO 13849-1 and EN/IEC 62061. Gary Milburn, Rockwell Automation Area Manager - Safety, explores the implications to Australia’s industrial community.

In most states, the law points to six-monthly inspections of anchor points and static lines but the answer in your circumstances might not be quite so straightforward.

A new safety initiative developed by the Australian Reinforcing Company has resulted in no lost-time injuries at the company’s Victorian and Tasmanian sites.

Ahead of his presentation at the Safety Institute of Australia’s Safety in Action conference in April, a leading workplace safety lawyer contends that the only way to get money out of a CEO for business that’s otherwise been ignored for OHS is to create a slogan that’s appealing to the CEO.

The advent of the discovery of oil and consequently all the by-products of oil (fuels, lubricants, solvents) used in modern society has been highlighted as one of the greatest advances of the industrialised period. Unfortunately this white cloud also has a darker lining. When fuel and by-products (hydrocarbons) are spilt, leak or worse still dumped into drainage systems the potential for explosion, fire or poisoning is significant. Contamination can also occur from stormwater runoff where low levels of hydrocarbons aggregate to form a hydrocarbon layer over water.

WorkCover NSW has published new guidelines for injury management consultants.

New mine safety laws for Tasmania came into effect on 28 February 2011.