Occupational Health and Safety

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This is my entry to Techie She Lucky Blogger Weekly Giveaway Week 12. This week’s prize is $10 paypal cash credit from Sir Rob of Be a LifeSaver of Goodness.

The topic on Safety in the Workplace is very important. Nowadays, companies are giving emphasis on the Occupational Health and Safety of the employees and the community. But companies also has business advantages on doing this, some requires it before any transaction and it gives the company itself added value to their brand or name. So it’s a win-win situation.

Why am I taking about this, well I am not the assigned Safety Officer of our company but I am assigned to manage and update our certification to OHSAS 18001:2007 standards (Occupational Health and Safety Management System). That is aside from ISO 9001:2008 (Quality Management System) and ISO 14001:2004 (Environmental Management System). I am more on the documentation rather than on the implementation.

WARNING: From here on, it might get a little boring. Read at your own risk.

What is OHSAS 18001:2007? It is the standard for managing Occupational Health and Safety of an organization. While the standard specifies the requirements such as documentation and other activities, we need a third party assessor/ auditor to certificate us to the standard. And let me tell you it is not just a simple auditing, so being certified is a big thing.

Sample of the requirements is assessing the hazards and risks associated for a particular area. We usually call it HIRA or Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment, here we identify the likelihood and severity of a given activity or area and propose actions to lower the risk.

Ex.
Area: Office
Activity: Use of Computers
Hazard: Eye Strain
Risk: Eye Problem
Likelihood: 4 (scoring 1 to 5, since use of computer usually takes most of the time)
Severity: 2 (scoring 1 to 5, impact is not that severe)
Control Measures: Take breaks every 2 hours, use antiglare glasses or screen protector.

This is a simple and common sample. Activity varies from one company to another depending on the nature, of course.

The Moon and Ramadan

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Ramadan Kareem!

And to understand why is I am fussing about it while I’m not a Muslim, please read my post Ramadan Mubarak on my other blog. It’s tiring to repeat everything.

Did you know that start and end of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar is based on the moon sighting? Now you know. It starts with the new moon and ends after a complete cycle.

From About.com

The traditional method, mentioned in the Qur'an and followed by the Prophet Muhammad, is to look to the sky and visibly sight the slight crescent moon (hilal) that marks the beginning of the month. If one sees the hilal at night, the next day is the first day of Ramadan and thus the first day of fasting. At the end of the month, when the community sights the hilal again, the Festival of Fast-Breaking ('Eid al-Fitr) begins.

Aside from that, I am really fascinated with the Moon and it’s many phases. You have the new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter and waning crescent (in order of appearance, and in the picture, counterclockwise).

The moon orbits the earth approximately 28 days, so the lunar calendar is shorter than our usual calendar. And the differences in the phases depends on the relative position it has compared with the earth and sun.

And we have the solar and lunar eclipse.

From Moonconnection.com
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth passes between the Moon and the Sun, and the Earth's shadow obscures the moon or a portion of it. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, blocking all or a portion of the Sun.

Hazard Identification

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Read the label, make it a habit!

Whether you’re buying foods, medicine, insecticide, chemicals – it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

For foods and medicine be wary of the expiration dates, and if you’re health conscious also the sugars, carbs, salt in it, etc







For chemicals, look for the hazard label, code, logo or picture. It will give you the proper warning on how to use, handle, dispose, etc.

How can we apply these knowledge?

Pls read the email I received a few days ago...

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This is a Home Safety incident that happened on 13th May 2011 in Pune, India ..
Incident:
A housewife died due to burns sustained in the kitchen. Her husband too hospitalized for injury/burn while trying to rescue her.
What happened:
The gas stove was on, cooking under process. The housewife observed some cockroaches near the sink and grabbed a can of insect repellent and sprayed it near the gas stove, which was on/burning.
As a result, an explosion happened and in no time the housewife was covered in flames, sustained 65% burns. Her husband rushed in, tried to extinguish the flames and his clothes too caught fire. The husband is still being hospitalized in the burns ward and still unaware that his wife has succumbed, dead on arrival.
Let us Learn:
Insect repellent and other pressurized cans contain Flammable Material.
Did the poor lady realise the hazard involved? Apparently not!

Density

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It’s not a misspell, it is indeed Density and not Destiny because you are on my Science blog eh.

Okay, Density is defined as the mass per unit volume.

There was a running question (or joke - but not really funny), which is heavier 1 Kg of cotton or 1Kg of nail?

The obvious answer is- it both has the same weight.

But the correct question should be which is more dense?

And the correct answer is the nail.

Why?

Because although they have the same weight or mass (which is 1 Kg), the volume occupied by the cotton is more than the volume of the nail.

So let’s assume, the volume of cotton is 2 cm3 and nail is 0.5 cm3, the density of cotton and nail can be computed using the formula:

Density = mass/ volume

Density of cotton = 1 Kg/ 2 cm3 = 0.5 Kg/cm3

Density of nail = 1 Kg/ 0.5 cm3 = 2.0 Kg/cm3

Therefore, nail is more dense than cotton.

But I’ll give you a shorter way to determine which is more or which is less without the computation perse.

If you will submerge it with water, which one will sink and which one will float?

Of course the nail will sink and the cotton will float.

There goes the same answer, the nail is more dense while the cotton is less dense.

Why?

Because density of water is always 1 and used as THE standard.

So things (liquid or solid) with density more than 1 will sink,

While things (liquid or solid) with density less than 1 will float.

I always encourage people even myself to ask, because that’s how you learn things.

Gets?

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And while we’re on the topic, some use the word ‘dense’ to describe persons who cannot grasp things (like if your crush doesn’t understand your pa-cute ways)…

So when people call you dense don’t be happy about it because it means you’re less than 1 (the standard).

Gets?

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It’s been a whole year since my last post…

my apologies to my blog and my readers (if any)…

pH Care

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Since I’m still high on my new job, I’ll let you peek on one of the test and machine I am using.

Tada! The one on the center is a pH Meter, and that goes to show it measures the pH of a solution.

What do you know about pH?

pH is the measure of acidity or alkalinity of a solution. Or the measure of hydrogen ions (H+). The pH scale is from 0 to 14 with 0 as most acidic and 14 as most basic. Of course 7 is the median with pure water as the best example.

pH scale from staff.jccc.net

I’m sure you don’t care about those things, but I am to cite a more common example. We are aware of the many genitalia products in the market all claiming to be the best because it is either pH 4 or 5 and so on. They are correct, pH balance is a fundamental component of vaginal health (to read more visit sweetspotlab.com). We have to maintain the natural pH of 4 to 5 (generally acidic), and using soap with pH of 8 to 10 (generally basic) would disrupt the balance.

But hey nowadays, lower pH soaps are available so just check out the labels.

Science is great huh? Everything has an explanation. That's why I love it!