Chemical Hazards in the Workplace
Companies play a critical role in society. They manufacture essential products in our day to day lives. Without the presence of companies, life would be difficult for humans as society currently relies on manufactured products. Companies make most of the food we eat, drinks, and clothes. We the current outbreak of a contagious disease, COVID-19, most of the uses have realized the significance of companies in the society. The World Health Organization has urged the people of the world to always sanitize their hands as one of the ways to control the virus from getting into our bodies. With this declaration of WHO, many companies have emerged from manufacturing hand sanitizers that are used globally to curb the spread of the virus.
DEKA Company is one of the companies trying to save the world of the new pandemic that has threatened to lock the entire world. Initially, the company was manufacturing alcoholic drinks, but it has shifted to the production of hand sanitizers. The decision to change the product the company manufactures left made wondering why the company had to shift its production to hand sanitizers. According to many people, the company is opportunistic in that it is using an outbreak of the coronavirus to make substantial profits. However, this is not the case as the company did so as one of its roles in helping address the societal challenges. While the company is producing a product that is protecting the society of the virus, the employees involved in the production process are at risk of health problems due to chemical exposure.
The manufacture of hand sanitizer involves several steps, as several factors are taken into considerations. As the virus is one of the microorganisms, the biological factor is considered in the manufacturing process because knowledge of the structure of the virus is required to aid in the design of the effective chemical that kills them (Ruzzin et al., 2010). The health of the users is also considered since the health act requires that products that possess no health threat humans to should be produced. Environmental protection is another factor that is regarded as in the manufacture of hand sanitizers and other chemicals. Several chemicals are mixed to obtain all these measures. VOC (benzene, hexane, etc.) and disinfectants are some of the chemicals used in the production of hand sanitizers.
The exposure of VOC and disinfectants for more than one year has adverse health implications. Disinfectants are toxic chemicals that are intended to kill microorganisms, such as viruses and bacteria. If an employee working in the hand sanitizer’s plant inhales the substance for long, he/she risks getting cancer, reproductive disorders, and respiratory diseases (Slotosch et al., 2017). Benzene, on the other hand, if accumulated in the body, causes harmful effects on the bone marrow leading to a decrease in the red blood cells produced. Less red blood cells in the body will make individual contract anemia. Benzene also may lead to excessive bleeding and lowers body immunity, hence increasing chances of contracting diseases (Smith, 2010). It is, therefore, DEKA Company needs to put more effort to protect its employees from the exposure to such chemicals to protect their health.
Most of the employees working in the production plans have nose masks to prevent them from inhaling harmful substances. But the question is, how effective are those masks in protecting the employee? Some chemicals have fine particles that can get through the common masks and down the respiratory tract into the lungs, causing breathing complications or getting into the body through blood circulation and causing other problems. Most companies have not paid attention to this, which is why people who have worked in chemical-producing plants suffer from diseases such as cancer later in life. From my observation in DEKA Company, I found that the employees working outside the production plant, for example, those who work as cashiers and security, do not wear masks and gloves. Such employees stand a high chance of having the chemicals getting into their bodies.
The areas surrounding the production plant is always full of chemicals as there are possible leakages. Therefore all the employees working in all departments in the company requires protective equipment. For example, cashiers may not be careful in washing their hands, yet they have touched surfaces that contain chemicals. When eating, they ingest chemicals into their bodies. Some chemicals can get into the body through the skin. This an issue that most production plants have not taken into account (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). Hence they do not supply their employees with protective clothing from head to legs. This chemical gets into the body easily. Skin, for example, causes eye and skin irritation when it comes into contact with these organs. The safety measures that are in force in the production plants advocate for the protection from actual contact.
Chemicals may escape into the surrounding environment of the production plant in the form of fumes. Manufacturers have not been considering this fact in the protection of their workers. Such fumes may remain on the surface of the skin, causing skin cancer and other infections. The Health and safety rules of the production plants need to be revised. Revision should be done in light of the casualties that have been reported in the past. For instance, most of the employees working in manufacturing plants contact cancer later in life, yet they used masks at work. Extensive research needs to be done to identify the possible routes through which the chemicals might be taking to get into the bodies of the workers.
Chemical sampling and analysis are used by health and safety professionals to assess the workers’ exposure to chemicals in their workplace. The validity of the assessment relies on the effectiveness of the sampling methods used. In many cases, the sampling procedures apply the knowledge that has been discovered over the years and approved by professionals as good practice in assessing the workplace exposures of harmful substances. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, each chemical has a sampling method to evaluate its presence in the workplace. And how the employee gets exposed to such chemicals. For instance, the best sampling method for benzene exposure is the Grab (detector tubes and gas bags). This method is useful because it takes personal sampling for air contaminants, occupational skin exposure, and technical equipment.
The best sampling method is that which considers all the aspects of contamination associated with a particular chemical. For instance, direct reading is the best sampling method for disinfectant exposure. The technique allows significant collections of data and determination of the workers’ exposure during the operations. The method provides qualitative data to examine worker exposures to chemicals. With this method, the presence of the substances in the workplace environment can be detected by the equipment used. However, the methods have some limitations, including the detection limit, compliance monitoring, and may not provide the necessary specificity. Despite the limitations, the technique is preferred for assessing the workers’ exposure to harmful substances such as disinfectants.
Effective controls protect employees from workplace hazards. Research efforts have been devoted to the topic of hazard prevention and control in the workplace. From the studies that have been done, researchers have come with various ways in which the employers can protect their workers from exposure to harmful chemicals. These include identifying and evaluating options for controlling hazards using the hierarchy of controls, using hazard control plans to guide the selection and implementation of controls, and developing plans with measures to protect workers (Pedersen, Jepsen, & Ádám, 2014). Of all these measures, the most effective method to protect workers in the hierarchy of controls. The technique consists of five rungs: elimination, substitution, administrative controls, engineering controls, and personal protective equipment. These rungs are arranged from the most effective controls to the least effective, covering all aspects of the hazards exposure at the workplace.
Production plans manufacture products that are essential in our lives. For instance, DEKA Company produces hand sanitizers that are crucial considering the prevailing situation in the world. However, the workers in these plants are at risk of significant health hazards because of the exposure of harmful substances during the production process workers in DEKA Company are exposed to chemicals such as benzene and disinfectants. These chemicals can cause diseases such as cancer, anemia, and respiratory complications. Therefore, employers need to assess the possible ways these chemicals get into the employees. After discovering such routes, employers must design possible means of protecting workers from those chemicals. The hierarchy of controls is one such method that has been proven to protect the workers from such harmful substances.
References
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (n.d.). Sampling and analysis. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/samplinganalysis/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). Workplace safety & health topics: Chemicals. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/chemical.html
Ruzzin, J., Lee, D.-H., Carpenter, D. O., Jacobs, D. R., Jr. (2012). Reconsidering metabolic diseases: The impacts of persistent organic pollutants. Atherosclerosis, 224(1), 1–3.
Pedersen, R. N. F., Jepsen, J. R., & Ádám, B. (2014). Regulation and practice of workers’ protection from chemical exposures during container handling. Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, 9(1), 33.
Smith, M. T. (2010). Advances in understanding benzene health effects and susceptibility. Annual review of public health, 31, 133-148.
Slotosch, C. M., Kampf, G., & Löffler, H. (2017). Effects of disinfectants and detergents on skin irritation. Contact Dermatitis, 57(4), 235-241.