Workplace WSH Hazards

WSH HAZARDS ASSOCIATED WITH THE WORKPLACE

INTRODUCTION

Company XXXX is the world leading manufacturer of polymeric medical grade components and systems for injectable drug delivery, including stoppers, seals for vials, and closures.

Its business operations mainly served the hospital, healthcare and pharmaceuticals industries. In view of Company XXXX varying customer’s products requirements, it employ substantial amount of both hazardous and flammable chemicals in it’s manufacturing operations

At it’s facility located at YYYY, Company XXXX risky installation sites include:

Steam Boiler

Air Receiver

Chemical Liquid Store

Flammable Liquid Store.

Toxic Industrial Waste Storage

Substantial amount of hazardous and flammable substances were stored and used in Company XXXX manufacturing operations which require both a hazardous substance permit and Petroleum and Flammable Material Storage license.

To comply with the National Environment Agency , the Environmental Protection and Management Act, Section 26, Company XXXX have to conduct pollution/hazard/risk impact studies on its hazardous installations and this include both the chemical liquid store ,flammable liquid store and toxic industrial wastes storage.

The purposes of the QRA are to:

·        identify and quantify hazards and risks related to the transport, use and storage of hazardous materials;

·        determine hazards/risks due to possible accident scenarios which will lead to fire, explosion or toxic release;

·        recommend measures to be incorporated in the design and operation of the plant to keep hazards/risks to as low a level as practical;

·        facilitate the development of emergency response plans to deal with all possible accident scenarios

 

In view of Company XXX manufacturing requirement, it is prone to both chemical and physical hazards due to significant amount of hazardous substances and flammables employed in their manufacturing operations as well as the use of lifting equipment, gears, appliances , utilities such as the steam boiler, air compressor and air receiver to power it’s utility

IDENTIFY CHEMICAL HAZARD

To identify the chemical hazards, Company XXX should consider the use of   QRA, where key elements of risks, such as the statistically expected frequency of an accident and the statistically expected consequences of exposure to a toxic gas, must be determined using  these  probabilistic variables.

QRA is an approach for estimating the risk of chemical operations using probabilistic information. And it is fundamentally different approach from those used in many other engineering activities because interpreting the results of QRA requires an increased sensitivity to uncertainties that arise primarily from the probabilistic character of the data

Estimating the frequencies and consequences of rare accidents is a synthesis process that provides a basis for understanding risk. Using this synthesis process, we can develop risk estimates for hypothetical accidents based upon our experience with the individual basic events that combine to cause the accident. System logic models are used to couple the basic events together, thus defining the ways accident can occur

IDENTIFY BIOLOGICAL HAZARD

When considering hazards from pathogenic bacteria, however, a qualitative risk assessment may be the only feasible method currently available to derive an assessment of the severity and the likelihood of harm associated with exposure through ingestion of a food. However, both the quantitative and qualitative methods will depend on the type and quality of information developed during the risk assessment process.

While the basic steps are the same, their application will be different when conducting a qualitative assessment, as the analyst will not have the information necessary to develop a mathematical estimate of the probability and/or severity of an adverse consequence. When assessing risk for some biological agents, sufficient data may be available to conduct a quantitative analysis. However, the analyst will find that in most cases the many uncertainties associated with how and when an organism may express pathogenic potential will make a quantitative assessment impractical. Further research is required to permit more accurate and quantitative assessments in the future.

In the absence of quantitative data to develop an exposure assessment, measurement of hazard levels at particular process steps, or segments of the production chain, may provide a qualitative indication of likely risks to consumers. In this respect comparative studies on biological hazard levels and qualitative estimates of the likely effects of differences to human health can be used.

The analysis of risk associated with bacterial pathogens presents unique challenges. Any method used to assess the risk of hazards from food borne bacteria will be complicated by factors resulting from methods used to grow, process, store and prepare food for consumption. These can vary greatly depending on cultural and geographical differences. Such factors describe the scenario set for a given food and are an essential element in a risk assessment for bacterial hazards.

As already noted, in many cases sufficient data will not be available to support a quantitative assessment of risk associated with pathogenic bacteria. The following present an indication of the type of challenges that make quantitative risk assessment difficult for pathogenic bacteria associated with foods.

Bacterial agents known to cause food borne disease have been identified by using epidemiological and other data to link the organism and its source to illness. However, as only a limited number of outbreaks are adequately investigated, it is likely that a number of bacterial pathogens in food remain to be identified.

Limitations on hazard identification include (i) the expense and difficulty involved in outbreak investigations; (ii) the lack of reliable or complete epidemiological data; and, (iii) the inability to isolate and characterize new pathogens