PDC on Hazard and Risk Assessment By Maharshi Mehta, ISS

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Hazard and Risk Assessment

• PDC on Hazard and Risk Assessment
• Occucon 2014, Goa
• February 11, 2014

• Maharshi Mehta, CSP, CIH
• International Safety Systems, Inc.,
  Washingtonville New York, USA
• www.issehs.com

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Agenda

• Introduction to Industrial Hygiene
• Hazards
• Chemical Physical and Biologcal Agents
• Hazards and Risk
• Exposure Limits
• Risk Assessment Tools
• Case Studies
• Demonstration of Risk Assessment tools

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Industrial Hygiene
Hazard Anticipation-Hazards likely to be present?
Hazard Recognition-What are health hazards?
Risk Evaluation-Exposed to health hazard? How
much?
Risk Control-How can exposure be reduced?
So that.. Health risk is minimized
And potential for occupational illnesses,
material loss are reduced and the company
liability minimized
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The Need

• Prevent occupational illness and injury by
  reducing/eliminating health risk
• Significant cost savings by reducing/recovering
  particulate/vapor emissions
• Regulatory requirements
• Productivity increase

• In the Europe, 150 million workdays are lost each
  year due to work accidents and illnesses and the
  insurance costs 20 billion Euros
• Annual cost of occupational illnesses and
  injuries in Latin America is about 75 billion

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Exposure Limits

• Airborne concentration of a substance
• Repeated exposure to the substance below exposure
  limit day after day is unlikely to produce
  adverse health effects in healthy workers
• High Health Hazard Chemicals have low exposure
  limits.
• Examples of exposure limits at Huntsman
• Hydrochloric acid 5 ppm ceiling limit
• Ammonia 25 ppm long term limit for 8 hours
  exposure

Exposure limits are not a fine line between safe
and dangerous concentrations
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Organizations Establishing Occupational Exposure
Limits (OELs)

• American Conference of Governmental Industrial
  Hygienists (ACGIH), USA
• Local Regulatory Agencies
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration
  (OSHA), USA
• Health and Safety Executive (HSE), UK
• Technical Rules for Hazardous Substances (TRGS),
  Germany
• GE Established OELs
• More stringent

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Units of Exposure Limits
Expressed as concentration of the airborne
substance in a volume of air

• Vapor/gaseous airborne substances
• ppm (parts per million)- the parts of airborne
  substance per million parts of air
• ppb (parts per billion)- the parts of airborne
  substance per billion parts of air

• Particulate airborne substances
• mg/m3 - milligrams of airborne substance per
  cubic meter of air
• µg/m3 - micrograms of airborne substance
  per cubic meter of air

1 m
1 m
.
1 m
1 mg
Airborne fibers Fibers/cc -fibers per cubic
centimeter of air
Concentration of airborne substance is 1 mg/m3
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What are Hazards and Risks

• Hazard Chemical, Physical and or Biological
  agent that can cause harm 
• Risk - The likelihood that the potential for harm
  will be caused by hazards
• Hazardous substances are present most of the time
• Risk is dependant on (a) human exposure to
  hazards and (b) degree of exposures
• Degree of exposure is dependant on controls
  provided and work practices followed

Industrial Hygiene Risk Assessment (IHRA) is
process of determining degree of health RISK
based on degree of HAZARDS and extent of EXPOSURE
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The Need

• Assist in determining
• the need for exposure controls
• respiratory protection and types of respirators
• if an illness is work related or not
• Assist in protecting company in occupational
  illness litigations
• Targeted medical surveillance
• Medical surveillance focused on potentially
  exposed individuals

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Methodology - Planning

• Obtain and review process information, chemical
  lists before hand
• Obtain and review past mentoring data and
  historical assessment
• Review floor plan and mark areas CRA to ensure
  all areas are covered
• Review applicable regulation and standards
• Obtain list of chemicals and ingredients

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Where and When Should Chemical Risk Assesment be
Done

• Where
• Include all operations and activities
• Include all non-routine operations and activities
  such as, maintenance
• Include activities with no apparent health risk
  also
• E.g., Warehouse potential risk from noise and
  carbon monoxide (CO) from forklift may be present
• When
• Before any new process begins
• When change in process occurs

Required for Employees, Contract Employees,
Temporary Workers
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Chemical Risk Assessment

• Degree of hazards
• Hydrochloric acid and ammonia
• Frequency and duration of handling/exposure
• How long tanker unloading is done
• The risk of the material becoming airborne
• of HCl and does it become airborne
• Historical air monitoring results (if available)
• Existing engineering controls and work practices
  followed
• How do we collect QC sample
• Effectiveness of exposure control is determined
  or not
• Chemical properties volatility, particle size,
  dryness
• Fly ash , coal dust
• Ingestion
• Skin contact

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Site Visit

• Determine frequency/duration of
  operation/personal exposures
• Determine approximate quantities of materials
  used
• Observe controls - make subjective assessment of
  effectiveness
• Interview workers and/or supervisors at each
  stage of process
• Gather data on raw materials, finished products,
  by-products
• Collect relevant MSDSs
• Note specific PPE used
• Start to complete Risk Ranking

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Rank Frequency Duration Frequency Duration Frequency Duration Frequency Duration Health Hazard Health Hazard Airborne Potential Engineering Control Skin Exposure Skin Exposure
  Daily Weekly monthly Yearly Chemicals API Airborne Potential   Skin Hazard Exposure Potential
1 Minimal (under 30 minutes) Any / Minimal (under 5 hours) Any / Minimal (under 20 hours) Any / Minimal (under 250 hours) OEL in range 3.1 to 10 mg/m3 or gt 1000 ppm OHC 1, OEL gt1000 µg/m3 Low Total enclosure validated by IH monitoring No skin hazard, temporary effects  
2 About 30 min to lt 2 hour 5 to 15 hours per week 20 to 60 hours per month 250 to 500 hours per year OEL in range 0.51 to 3 mg/m3 or 101 to 1000 ppm OHC 2, OEL 100 µg/m3 - 1000 µg/m3 Medium Total enclosure NOT validated    
3 About ½ Shift (2 to 4 hours) 15 to 25 hours per week 60 to 80 hours per month Use More Frequent Basis OEL in range 0.01 to 0.5 mg/m3 or 10 to 100 ppm OHC 2, OEL 100 µg/m3 - 1000 µg/m3 High      
4 About ¾ Shift (4 to 7 hours) 25 to 30 hours per week Use More Frequent Basis Use More Frequent Basis OEL lt 0.01 mg/m3 or lt 10 ppm OH Cat 3, OEL 10 µg/m3 - 100 µg/m3   Moderate (LEV) validated Probable skin irritants, materials may cause dermatitis. Short term skin exposure
5 (over 7 hours) Use More Frequent Basis Use More Frequent Basis Use More Frequent Basis   OH Cat 4, OEL 1 µg/m3 - 10 µg/m3        
6           Cat 4, OEL 0.01 µg/m3 - 1 µg/m3   Moderate not Validated    
7           OH Cat 4, OEL lt 0.01 µg/m3     Will cause skin irritation, sensitizers, corrosives (acids, caustics, nickel). Repeated-long Skin exposure
8               Non-fixed controls movable LEV    
9                    
10               No controls Materials toxic to skin (ACGIH) Skin Skin exposure certain
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Final Risk Ranking Criteria Final Risk Ranking Criteria Final Risk Ranking Criteria
  Description Final Risk Ranking
lt50 Acceptable process is well controlled and personal exposures are obviously unlikely to become significant no further action required other than periodic review  1
50-200 Potentially acceptable but it may be possible to further reduce exposures by adopting simple recommendations 2
200-400 Further evaluation needed the qualitative assessment has not provided enough information to be confident that personal exposures are acceptable air monitoring may be required. 3
gt 400 Very High Risk -Implement exposure controls immediately 4
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Case Study-HCl unloading

• 37 HCl, how hazardous the chemical is?
• Ceiling Limit of 2 ppm
• Unloading is done from tanker
• Closed piping
• Unloading is done for 2 hours/week
• Is it harmful through skin?
• Skin Contact likely?
• What is final risk

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Ranking

• Frequency Duration Ranking?
• Hazard Ranking?
• Is it becoming easily airborne? Ranking?
• Are exposure controls provided? Effective?
  Ranking?
• Inhalation ranking multiplication of 1x2x3x4
  ranking
• Now what is inhalation ranking?

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Skin Ranking

• Is HCl very harmful to skin? What is ranking?
• Is skin contact likely? What is ranking?
• Skin Exposure ranking is 1x2
• What is skin exposure risk?
• Total Risk is Inhalation Ranking Skin Ranking
• What is Total Ranking?
• Is risk acceptable? What needs to be done

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Observations and Recommendations

• Very important as observation based degree of
  risk is more important than number based risk
• Provides bases for ranking used
• Obtain and enter as much of the pertinent
  information as possible based on observations and
  interviews
• While making recommendations, consider
• Quick Fix
• Feasibility
• Cost effectiveness
• Mention PPEs used, if any

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Quantitative Exposure Assessment

• Chemical exposure monitoring
• Direct reading instruments
• Detector tubes (Colorimetric tubes)
• Passive monitoring with Diffusion badges/tubes
• Active monitoring with sampling pumps
• Noise monitoring
• Area noise monitoring
• Personal noise exposure monitoring (Dosimetry)
• Heat stress monitoring
• Ionizing radiation monitoring
• Vibration monitoring
• Bio-aerosol monitoring

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Active Air Monitoring
Sampling media
Sampling media
Sampling pump
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Active Air Monitoring

• Process
• Air is drawn through a sampling media, kept in
  the breathing zone of the person potentially
  exposed, with a battery operated sampling pump
• The sampling media is analyzed and weight of
  contaminant determined
• The weight is divided by the volume of air drawn
  through the media to determine contaminant
  concentration
• Substance-specific accurate identification of
  exposure
• Corporate and regulatory requirements
• Acceptable in litigation
• Determines exposure during actual work. Not an
  instantaneous concentration determination as in
  direct reading instrument

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Quality Assurance in Exposure Monitoring

• Health of working people depends on exposure
  monitoring results
• Ensure sampling duration is closed to the
  exposure duration.
• Do not miss beginning and ending of shifts as
  high exposure may occur during this time (e.g.,
  cleaning of work area)
• Exposure monitoring may have to begin at 6 am if
  shift starts at 6 am.
• Ensure calibration of sampling device before and
  after sampling
• Ensure sampling device is calibrated annually
• Ensure sampling time is exact. Ensure sampling
  time does not end with 0 and 5 (e.g., 805 am,
  810 am)

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Demonstration of Risk Assessment Tool and
Discussions

• Control Of Substances hazardous to Health (COSHH)
  Risk Assessment Tool
• Industrial Hygiene Risk Assessment Tool at one of
  the largest corporations
• Process
• Computerized model
• Data Synthesis and analysis for 2000 sites
  globally

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COSHH Assessment Tool-Part 1
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COSHH Assessment Part 2
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COSHH Assessment Part 3
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COSHH Assessment Part 4
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Enhanced IH Module
Assessment w/Risk Assessment integrated into IH
module
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Enhanced IH Module (Cont.)
Streamlined Add New Assessment form
Risk Assessment Details section
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Enhanced IH Module (Cont.)
Risk Assessment Details Pending for an Existing
Assessment Record
Risk Assessment Details Completed
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Enhanced IH Module (Cont.)
Streamlined Risk Assessment Details Form with
Guidance Mouseovers
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Enhanced IH Module (Cont)
Risk Assessment Workflow Option to Submit to
Reviewer
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Enhanced IH Module (Cont.)
Risk Assessment Review Option Special Right
Required
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HSE (UK) COSHH Essentials

• Control banding tool for small to medium size
  enterprises to do risk assessments for chemicals
  mixtures of chemicals
• Required information
• Type of task shoveling, drilling
• Hazard classification (using risk safety
  phrases from MSDS )
• Volatility or dustiness (from guidance material)
• Amount used- kg,mg,litres,milliliters

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HSE (UK) COSHH Essentials (cont)

• System identifies
• Control band (control approach)
• Produces advice on controlling risk from the
  chemical being used in the task
• Provides written guidance documentation

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ILO Chemical Control Tool kit

• Very similar to COSHH Essentials
• Does not apply to process dusts or fumes due to
  the fact that these are not classified by the
  supplier of individual chemicals
• Has general application to many situations in
  developing countries but susceptible groups
  (child workers pregnant women) need to be
  considered

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Stages of the ILO Chemical Control Toolkit
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Stage 1 Hazard Classification
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Stage 1 Hazard Classification (cont)
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Stage 2 How Much is Used
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Stage 3 - Dustiness
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Stage 3 Volatility
Source ILO toolkit
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Stage 4 Control Approach
Source ILO toolkit
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Stage 5 Task Specific Control Guidance Sheet
Source ILO toolkit
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Stage 5 Task Specific Control Guidance Sheet
Source ILO toolkit
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Stage 5 Task Specific Control Guidance Sheet
Source ILO toolkit
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Lessons Learned

• Understanding Hazard is prerequisite to risk
  assessment
• Risk Assessment is essential to determine degree
  exposure controls
• Comprehensive Risk Assessment reduces over all
  cost of exposure monitoring and provides
  opportunity to implement exposure controls before
  monitoring
• Above all Adds few days, months or years in to
  life of working people.