ANSI Safety, health, and environmental training standard

On the topic of somewhat recently released standards, here's one on safety, health and environmental training from ASSE:

ANSI Z490.1-2009
Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety, Health, and Environmental Training

• This standard establishes criteria for safety, health, and environmental training programs, including development, delivery, evaluation and program management. The purpose of this standard is to provide accepted practices for safety, health, and environmental training. This standard is recommended for voluntary application by providers of safety, health, and environmental training, and it is intended to apply to a broad range of training and training programs.

Safety Culture of University Labs Scrutinized

Taken for Granted: Building a Culture of Safety," written by Beryl Lieff Benderly, asks whether researchers are focused sufficiently on safety. It discusses Cal/OSHA penalties assessed in May 2009 against UCLA in connection with the Jan. 16, 2009, death of a research assistant.

Jun 13, 2009
A worrisome look inside the safety of university science labs is currently featured on the online site of Science Careers, which is associated with the journal Science. Titled "Taken for Granted: Building a Culture of Safety," the article written by Beryl Lieff Benderly of Washington, D.C., discusses Cal/OSHA penalties assessed in May 2009 against UCLA in connection with the Jan. 16, 2009, death of research assistant Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji. She succumbed to burn injuries suffered on Dec. 29, 2008, after her clothing caught fire as she transferred a pyrophoric chemical from one container to another.

Benderly has followed this story closely for Science Careers. Sangji was not wearing PPE or a lab coat, according to the coverage, which notes that UCLA announced May 4 it would not contest or appeal the $31,875 fine.

Benderly's latest article quotes lab safety experts about the state of safety in university laboratories. PPE is not frequently used in some university labs, where the culture prizes individual creativity. One expert urges lab workers to speak up forcefully whenever they see a colleague working in an unsafe manner.

UCLA's May 4 statement quoted Chancellor Gene Block: "In the wake of Sheri's tragic accident, I communicated to the UCLA community plans for a comprehensive review of our laboratory inspection programs and implementation of revised procedures to ensure the safety of our researchers. Although substantial progress has already been made, we will continue to thoroughly monitor and assess our lab training and safety protocols as an integral component of our daily operations. The Cal/OSHA report will provide critical assistance with these ongoing efforts. As we continue to mourn Sheri's death and grieve for her family, we are determined to rededicate ourselves to ensuring the safety of each and every member of our entire Bruin family." (More....)

UCLA appeals state findings in fatal lab fire

Cal/OSHA had cited workplace-safety violations in the December death of staff research assistant Sheri Sangji. The school says it has made required changes and paid more than $31,000 in fines.
By Kim Christensen
June 6, 2009
UCLA has appealed state regulators' findings of serious workplace-safety violations in the fatal burning of a staff research assistant last year in a lab fire.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health found last month that Sheri Sangji, 23, was not properly trained and was not wearing protective clothing Dec. 29 when an experiment with air-sensitive chemicals burst into flames. (More...)

June 2009 safety awareness poster, DOA

Here is the June safety poster from the Department of Administration, highlighting their three
focus areas:

• Lifting, Moving or Restraining Loads, typically resulting in back, shoulder and neck injuries;
• Slips, Trips and Falls, typically resulting in concussions, broken limbs, broken hips and back, shoulder and neck injuries; And,
• Motion of the Individual, which in an office environment includes ergonomic related injuries.

Sculpture studio exposure study

The NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE) Program evaluated potential exposures at a college’s sculpture studios. Investigators recommended that managers correct safety hazards in the studios and substitute a less toxic plastics adhesive that does not contain methylene chloride. To reduce exposure to welding fumes, it was recommended that adequate outdoor and replacement air be supplied to the sculpture studios and local exhaust ventilation be installed in the metalworking studio.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/hhe/reports/pdfs/2007-0167-3078.pdf

WIDNR Air & Waste Division 2008 Annual Report

http://dnr.wi.gov/environmentprotect/ar.pdf

NEW RCC STAFF ANNOUNCEMENT!

Recycling Connections Corporation is please to announce that Angie Lemar will be our new Program Director, following the resignation of Annie Amos. For those that weren't aware, Annie has moved to Eugene, Oregon where her husband will be starting graduate school for sustainable architecture.

Angie brings a wide variety of experiences and education to the position. She will be leaving her current position as Environmental Education Outreach Program Specialist for Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education at UW-Stevens Point. Angie has a Bachelors of Science degree in Waste Management from UW-Stevens Point and recently has been working with RCC under a contract-basis for developing the DNR's Recycling Managers / Business Recycling Web-based toolkit.

She has also held two summer intern positions at the Adams County Landfill and Recycling Facility for community education activities, and has also worked with AmeriCorp and the Northwest Service Academy in a variety of positions.

She will begin with RCC on a very part-time basis June 1 for training and transition work, and will be full-time on July 1. In light of this during the month of June especially, please contact me, Karin Sieg, initially for any questions or concerns that Annie normally handled until Angie is more settled. Contact information for both of us is below.

Angie Lemar's contact information:
email: angie@recyclingconnections.org
phone: (920) 810-4590 (She will use Annie's cell phone account until it expires in September, 2009.)
address: 600 Moore Road, Plover, WI 54467 (Angie lives in Stevens Point)

Regards,

Karin

Karin SiegExecutive DirectorAssociated Recyclers of Wisconsin600 Moore RoadPlover, WI 54467http://www.arow-online.org/Phone: (715) 343-6311Fax: (715) 345-5971ExecDirector@arow-online.org
AROW contracts with Recycling Connections Corp. (RCC) for Executive Director services.

Scientists Convene to Discuss New Method to Study How Toxic Chemicals Impact Human Health

Contact: Latisha Petteway, 202-564-3191 / 4355 / petteway.latisha@epa.gov


(Washington, D.C. – May 28, 2009) More than 200 scientists, regulators, and policy makers from around the world convened recently at EPA’s first ToxCast Data Analysis Summit to discuss results of the first phase of ToxCast. ToxCast is an innovative approach for profiling how chemicals in our environment impact important biological pathways that are critical for the function of the body’s systems such as the heart, lungs, brain or reproductive organs.

EPA launched the ToxCast research program in 2007 to develop a cost-effective approach for prioritizing the toxicity testing of large numbers of chemicals in a short period of time. This new approach to determining how toxic chemicals could impact human health uses cutting-edge biological tests to determine how chemicals affect cellular functions. ToxCast will help EPA determine under what conditions environmental exposures pose risks to human health.

During the first phase of ToxCast, EPA researchers conducted more than 200,000 experiments looking at the interactions between approximately 300 chemicals and 500 biological targets such as hormone receptors and liver enzymes. EPA researchers provided early access to the initial ToxCast data to research groups around the world, and this data was the foundation for discussions at the meeting. To evaluate the value of ToxCast, the new data is being compared to those generated by traditional toxicity testing methods

Based upon input from the meeting, EPA researchers are now preparing to launch a second phase of the ToxCast program that will expand on and verify the ability of this approach to predict potential human toxicity. EPA expects to complete this second phase of ToxCast over the next several years, and at that time be ready to deliver an innovative computational method for evaluating potential health impacts of environmental chemicals.

EPA and Pfizer, Inc. announced at the meeting that the company is making public clinical data on more than 100 drugs that showed adverse effects in clinical human testing. EPA will run the compounds through ToxCast, which will provide a critical and direct link to human toxicity outcomes.

Information on the ToxCast program: http://www.epa.gov/ncct/toxcast/index.html