Chemical Hazards at Work Place

Chemical Hazards at Work Place

Involvement of various polished and done chemicals in our daily lives has drastically improved our quality of life and has helped in micro activities in socities such as home improvement with paint, business cleaning and maintenance with acid cleaner and soaps, and even more in the macrobusinesses such as in the food industry where food coloring and artificial flavors are used and construction, engineering and science, production of polished chemicals are highly in demand and are truly appreciated. As the global industry expectedly expands, the demand of certain chemicals increases as well. But, concerning the other ends, how are chemical producing factory workers do in the certain increase of demand? Are they well? What are they risking? What are the risks?

In a workplace, there are multiple hazards that a worker that should be wary. One of them is chemical hazards, so in specific, what are chemical hazards? Chemical hazard are substances that has the potential to cause harm to someone who is working in a certain workplace which involves chemicals. Even household chemicals such as toilet bowl cleaners can be deadly when making contact on skin. In a chemical factory, chemical hazards are present and everyone inside the factory are susceptible to such threat since these chemicals are in various forms, as they can be in, gaseous, liquid and solid state, and if not careful and well-informed, one might be in great danger. These are some dangerous chemical that are in a work place: 

• Acids (According to Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOSH), common acid in workplaces are Hydrochloric Acid, Sulfuric Acid, Nitric Acid, Chromic Acid, Acetic Acid, & Hydroflouric Acid)
• Caustic substances (refers to corrosive chemicals)
• Cleaning products such as toilet cleaners, disinfectants, mildew remover and chlorine bleach (contains ammonia & etc.)
• Heavy metals  (such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and aluminum)
• Paint
• Pesticides (contains active ingredients such as boric acid and other chemicals that has strong smell)
• Petroleum products

Numbers of Chemical-related Injuries up until 2017

These are the numbers of chemical-induces injuries and accidents in workplace recorded by Bureau of Labor Statistics US (BLS) in 2017 and previous years and discussed chemicals involved and means how employees acquired their injuries.

• In the retrospec, 2011 and 2014 has the highest recorded cases of fatalities due to exposure and making contact with chemicals by means of inhalation with 55 (2014) and 52 (2011), with a total of 297 fatalities across 7 years of their observation. 
  
  
• In the same charts, 2012 has the considerable lowest cases among the range of years as 33 considerable deaths were recorded in the specific year. 
  
  
• In terms of chemicals involved in these fatalities, carbon monoxide has the highest fatal injuries count of 116 and followed by hydrogen sulfide as it has recorded fatal injuries of 46 in 6 year (2011 to 2017) observation by BLS, there are other 12 substances involved in the samples as well such as resins and methane gas.
  
  
• Miners, constrcution workers, welders, grain workers, industry workers and flavoring workers are occupations that are highly susceptible to these chemicals where they make direct contact with various chemicals for work. With their adequate personal protective equipment, proper information about each chemicals and health protocol, this goes without problems and accomplish their task without getting themselves at harm (which will be talked about in the next blog).

If you are an employee of one of these field and has sustained injury injury, you can always hire a lawyer and file an injury claim if ever you find the employer is negligent in giving any instructions or giving inadequate PPE's and want to make him responsible for your injury. Ryan LLP is an Ohio based injury law firm that professionally represents their client who filed an injury claim or any claim such as wrongful death and medical malpractice which they do for more than 40 years and as well as 40 years of experience from doing so. Having our law firm on your side means higher chances of getting your workers compensation pay which can be used to deal with your medical bills and other extended bills to cover it up. Call our offices now if you are experiencing such chemical injury for free legal consultation.