Safety

ATEX

There is a significant amount of legislation designed to simplify the management, storage and use of solvents and other compounds.

The ATEX directive is a comprehensive piece of safety legislation. Existing factories must comply with it by June 2006.

In order to aid the implementation of the ATEX Directive it is essential to identify the measures required therein. The procedures should comprise:

• Assessing the risk of explosion
• Defining hazardous areas
• Coordinating and action plan
• Creating an Explosion Protection Document
• Ensuring compliance with cited minimum requirements
• Installation of explosion prevention measures
• Installing warnings and signage
• Review steps

Operational has experience with the ATEX legislation and our experienced engineers can provide a discrete service to assist with implementing the ATEX directive.

COSHH

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) requires employers to identify all materialsthat could be deemed to be hazardous and then to:

• Design and operate processes to minimise emissions, release and spread of hazardous substances
• Take into account all relevant route of exposure when developing control measures
• Control exposure
• Chose effective control options to minimise the escape of hazardous substances
• Where no control is possible, provide necessary PPE
• Check and review existing control measures
• Inform and train employees
• Ensure that the introduction of control measures does not increase the overall risk to health and safety.

Assessment

In order to control the risks associated with handling chemicals, it is essential to identify all the hazardous compound. This information can then be built into a COSHH assessment procedure.

The procedure should take account of:

• Main substances involved
• Processes involved that may produce intermediate compounds/by-products
• Dusts and fumes
• Break-down products

Operational have extensive experience with the COSHH guidelines and, our experienced engineers can provide a valuable service to assist with the development of a COSHH procedure.

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