GMC member Scaada is helping Geelong’s manufacturers improve safety by managing team exposure to welding fumes. Recently Scaada has witnessed a significant increase in Performance Improvement Notices being issued by WorkSafe Victoria around non-defined indoor air conditions at sites that engage in welding practices. Scaada Executive Director Dale Smith said, “over the past few months we have had in excess of a dozen organisations issued with WorkSafe notices around the monitoring of welding fumes. These notices create significant angst for organisations, however they are manageable with a simple analytical process.”
The Geelong based and owned consultancy’s air monitoring expertise is timely after a mandatory reduction to the workplace exposure standard for welding fumes in February.
Businesses must now ensure workers are not exposed to any airborne contaminant above a concentration of an 8-hour average of 1mg per square metre, down from 5mg previously.
Senior Occupational Hygienist Holly Bredin-Grey says a SCAADA assessment can give peace of mind to local manufacturers.
“The assessments make sure you’re up to spec with the exposure standards. We do walk throughs of workshops and assess the set up, ventilation, PPE and all those sorts of controls needed to keep workers safe. It’s really a holistic art, but applying a very scientific approach,” she tells GMC.
“Usually there’s something we can recommend to improve — and if you’re sitting nice and low near the limits you don’t have to worry too much. You’ve got all your controls in place and you know they’re working, that’s the key thing.
“That way you can be sure you’re achieving compliance and that everyone’s going home safe and they’re not going to crop up with some sort of illness 20 years down the track.”
Welding fumes are complex mixture of metallic oxides, silicates and fluorides that form when metal heats above boiling point. As the metal cools, it condenses into small particles easily breathed into the lungs, causing possible adverse health effects.
Ms Bredin-Grey says changes to workplace safety have been “wonderful for cutting back on these sorts of illnesses.”
“It’s great that the welding space is sitting up and taking account of these things, it’s definitely needed. People are changing their tune a little bit and coming around, especially with the standards now.”
Scaada has a broad range of services offerings in Occupational Hygiene monitoring and assessments, Workplace Health and Safety, Risk Mitigation, Environmental Compliance, ESG Strategies and Project Management. Their mantra is ensuring they provide their clients with solutions and outcomes. Their approach relies on collaboration, understanding and engagement, meaning they deliver results that meet the needs of the original identified objectives.
A fume assessment will involve personal monitoring with particulates and metals collected on a filter, as well as some gas monitoring on employees as they’re working, and those values are compared with mandated compliance levels. The process of analysis is relatively cost-effective in comparison to the financial penalty to organisations, or the risk of prosecution for failure to provide a safe working environment.
“We’re looking at your engineering controls — have you got ventilation going? Looking at what tools you’re using, what sort of welding you’re undertaking, and what materials you’re welding with as well. Different materials will have different gases coming off and different chemicals that you might be exposed to,” Ms Bredin-Grey said.
“We go back to the basic principles of occupational hygiene and around safety … following the hierarchy of controls. We look at what you’re doing, whether we can eliminate some of the hazards, whether we can substitute and isolate, working our way down right through to PPE.”
Advancements include Powered Air Purifying Respirators, which use a fan to deliver filtered air into head gear and face pieces. These offer higher protection than a simple form fitting respirator “just sort of being squished onto your face and working through passive means.”
“The Powered Air Purifying Respirators are quite good for use in welding because the contaminants you’re dealing with and the levels can be potentially fairly high and quite hazardous,” says Ms Bredin-Grey, who studied environmental science in her native New Zealand before relocating to Geelong around four years ago.
“I found myself in the field and I love it. The human element just adds a whole other layer of ways you can help people, it adds to job satisfaction — preventing illness in workers. At Scaada there’s a good approach to life-work balance, a lot of fun and a really positive team with a broad base of skills. It’s great to be part of.”