Environmental Health and Safety

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There are long lines at Florida gas stations and empty shelves in the state’s grocery stores, as residents both stock up on supplies and prepare to flee before Hurricane Irma makes its expected landfall sometime Sunday. Irma could then strike a blow at parts of Georgia and the Carolinas.

September is National Preparedness Month and the current response and recovery efforts for Hurricane Harvey remind us of the importance of being ready for emergencies and disasters. This unprecedented event will demand a long term commitment to the recovery of the affected areas in Texas and Louisiana.

Buckle your seat belts! Put on your high-speed safety gear! We’re about to blast off on a journey to explore the N95 respirator … and beyond. It’s N95 Day, and that means we are focusing on respiratory protection, and invite you to do the same.

The storm is over, the flood waters are receding and the difficult task of recovery is getting underway in Texas and Louisiana – activities which will bring a new set of hazards to the people who are trying to pick up the pieces and go on.

Hurricane Harvey devastates Texas and Louisiana, the tobacco industry is accused of using youth movies to advertise smoking and gain new customers and WHO got named to the Labor Hall of Fame? These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

Cable news and newspapers across the country are headlining the continuing explosions at the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas, that was flooded by Hurricane Harvey.

OSHA’s regs and enforcement have framed health and safety work for decades. If OSHA reduces its regulatory activity (delaying or reversing current regulations) and moves toward technical assistance, what might the impact be?

Most employees, whatever place they occupy on the org chart, can’t make everyone else do what they want just because they said so. Even if they could, influence works much better than force.

One thing we can always count on in life is change. And with change comes transformation. Although we are no longer making near as many obsolete technology products, there is always the need for the fundamentals in safety such as regulations, PPE and the like.

A new approach to dust monitoring is starting to spread throughout the industrial hygiene field. It is the use of a device that simultaneously does real-time direct reading combined with standard method in a compact wearable product. The beauty of this type of device is three-fold.