By Stuart Platt Definition of sustainability in business: ‘The ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level’. Business sustainability can also be defined as managing the ‘triple bottom line’, this means a process by which companies manage their financial, social and environmental risks, obligations and opportunities, especially in a holistic approach. These three impacts can also be referred to as; Profits, People and Planet. The fundamentals of everything your organisation does should revolve around quality, quality systems, quality product/services & quality staff etc. If you are sustaining a quality product or service, everything else should follow and fall…

Cancer causing or ‘Fake news’ By Guy LeNoir and Stuart Platt There has been a bit of public concern recently to ‘Round-Up’ and its link to cancer. Round-up is a herbicide weed killer with the main active ingredient ‘Glyphosate’. It was first developed by Monsanto in the 1970s (an American agrochemical & agricultural biotechnology). Mosanto is now owned by Bayer (a German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company). In Australia more than 500 Glyphosate products are available. Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. It’s an organophosphorus compound (a phosphonate) and acts by inhibiting the plants enzymes. Its…

With a database of more than 50 Million Vendor (M)SDS and powerful tools to manage (M)SDS and their updates, Chemwatch is the trusted (M)SDS Management provider to more than 5,000 organisations, globally. Chemwatch maintains a team of Emergency Response Experts, available 24/7 in 150 Languages, GLOBALLY. This service is operated by an experienced team of Toxicologists, Environmental scientists, Chemists and Medical Doctors with 24/7 access to the world’s largest library of Chemical information. Chemwatch has released SmartSuite 2 APP, an upgrade to the original SmartSuite Platform. This system provides Chemicals Management tools on location (in the field), when are where…

Written by: Stuart Platt During our Audits and inspections, we often come across risk assessment that are generic templates (not specific) and do not reflect the activities being observed i.e. missed hazards, not site specific or the controls documented are not the ones implemented etc. Usually on further investigation it is identified that they were written by one person, workers were not consulted or involved with the development. Most of the time workers could not recall what was within the risk assessment and enough monitoring has not taken place to ascertain their suitability to the tasks at hand. A sound…

by Stuart Platt 11/12/2018 Have you ever been asked ‘What is your main hazard in your workplace?’ Were you able to answer? Well,do you know what your top 5 hazards are within your organisation? Most people/organisations only focus on the ‘big ticket item’ and sometimes forget the other potential risks, or they have a risk register (usually a template) which they rarely review. Most have generic hazards and controls and are rarely site specific. Rarely is there a specific risk assessment conducted and / or workers consulted. A sound risk assessment can produce the following benefits: lower insurance premiums reduced chance…

Written by Guy LeNoir Australian Work-related traumatic injury fatalities The work-related traumatic injury fatalities data provides statistics about people who die each year from injuries caused by work-related activity. It includes fatalities that result from an injury sustained in the course of a work activity (worker fatality) and as a result of someone else’s work activity (bystander fatality). Not all Data inclusions and exclusions are outlined below but can be found here. (https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/statistics-and-research/statistics/fatalities/fatality-statistics) In the 14 years from 2003 to 2016, 3,414 workers lost their lives in work-related incidents. In 2016, there were 182 worker fatalities, equating to a fatality…

WILL LITHIUM BE THE NEXT METAL POISONING? By Guy LeNoir – Director / SOS-Switched Onto Safety What is Lithium? Lithium is the lightest of metals, is an alkali metal and like all alkali metals, it is highly reactive with strong oxidants, acids and many compounds including concrete, sand (silica) and of all things, asbestos. Posing as a significant explosion and fire risk. In its natural state it is an unremarkable product contained in petalite, lepidolite and spodumene ores and also subsurface brines. Lithium in various forms is used for a variety of things including glazes, aluminium products, batteries, lubricating greases,…

Imminent legislative changes to electrical safety in Western Australia are about to come into effect! Do you know about them or are you ready? Changes are being made in the; Electrical (Licensing) Regulation of WA 1991, The Code of Practice to: Working on or near Energized Electrical Installations and amendments to the Occupational Safety and Health Regulations 1996. The changes come into effect the 14th of May 2018, they are due to several factors: Since 2008 when a code of practice was released there has been no improvement in incident or injury rates. Far too many serious shocks, arc-flash incidents and electrocutions involve electricians…

We have started in the cyclone season (officially November 1)You may be wondering why we are raising this issue. Well it has come to our attention through our auditing and consulting work, that it does not appear that everyone working…