Occupational health & safety: an overview of employers'

The occupational health and safety in WA of employees and those visiting your workplace is an important issue for both employees and employers. An employee has a legal right to work in a safe environment. Therefore, as employers you have an obligation to ensure that your employees are protected from health and safety risks arising out of their work activities. Generally, this means that you have to:

• Provide and maintain safe systems of work
• Make arrangements for ensuring the safe use, handling, storage and transport of equipment or substances
• Provide necessary information, instruction, training and supervision

Obligations on employers in addition to the general duty of care to secure the health, safety and welfare of employees, there are many regulations which impose extensive additional requirements in relation to particular work processes, specific industries and hazards and administrative issues.

Risk Management: An integral part of an employer's duty is to engage in risk management processes in the workplace. This is a system which identifies the occupational health and safety risks that are relevant to your workplace. A risk management system is an ongoing process. It should be flexible and up-to-date to reflect the safety issues associated with your daily operations. A risk management system involves the following steps:

Identifying the hazards: This involves keeping records of accidents and injuries, conducting safety inspections of the workplace and listing all plant and hazardous substances.

Assessing the risks: This involves assessing how likely it is that a hazardous event will occur and what the consequences are likely to be.

Controlling the risks: The aim here is to eliminate the risk if possible. If the risk cannot be removed, then it should be minimized using substitution, modifications, isolation or engineering controls. Back-up controls such as personal protective equipment can assist but should only be used as a last resort. All these control measures should be constantly reviewed to maintain their effectiveness. Areas for improvement should also be monitored.

An occupational health and safety program: An Occupational Health and Safety WA at your workplace should cover the following:

• Training and education
• Work design, workplace design and standard work methods
• Changes to work methods and practice, including those associated with technological changes
• Safety rules, including penalties
• Emergency procedures and drills
• Provision of OH & S equipment, services and facilities
• Workplace inspections and evaluations
• Reporting and recording of incidents, accidents, injuries and illnesses
• Provision of information to employees
• Contractors and sub-contractors

Also, the program should be reviewed and continually updated. This is to ensure that your business is adopting the best possible measures to minimize the risk of injury in the workplace.

Occupational health and safety committees In WA: You are not required to have an OH & S committee if you have less than 20 employees. If you do have 20 or more employees and a majority of them requests an OH & S committee, then you must establish one. The principal role of the committee is to develop and implement an Occupational health and safety WA policy for the workplace. Occupational health and safety committees In WA can:

• Help to resolve any health and safety issue
• Carry out regular safety inspections
• Develop a system to record accidents and incidents
• Make recommendations to management about improving health and safety
• Have access to any information about risks to health and safety from any equipment or substance or occupational disease

Environmental Monitoring

Environmental Monitoring and OSH

Many activities generate pollution and other types of damage to the environment. Environmental monitoring is an important tool for determining the impacts and how best to mitigate them. It involves collection of data in the field and analysis of the data. The collected information is often input into computer models to estimate the future environmental impacts. Monitoring data is used to estimate current and future environmental impacts. Scientists are then able to recommend measures to reduce the impacts. Monitoring is also used to evaluate the effectiveness of measures designed to mitigate environmental damage. Environmental monitoring results are an important tool for comparing alternative projects and activities and deciding on a course of action that will minimize the environmental damage. Some environmental monitoring is aimed at collecting inventories---for example, the types and quantities of wildflowers in a national park. This information is used to measure changes in the environment. Monitoring involves uncertainties, and scientists develop and refine protocols to improve the accuracy and usefulness of the data collected.

 Environmental monitoring is a constant surveillance of the environment. It is a useful tool for the environment. With the passage of time, monitoring programme banks the environmental data on the trends and effects of developmental activities and provide a suitable guidelines to check the state and provide the information on environment. The purpose of monitoring is to show how well we are meeting our environmental objectives and to help detect new environmental issues. The results are also of fundamental importance to environmental management in general, as the drafting and prioritization of environmental policies is based on the findings of environmental monitoring. The published results make it possible for anybody to take part in the political debate. The national environmental monitoring programme comprises the following ten areas: • Air
• Mountains
 • Forests
• Agricultural land
 • Landscapes
 • Wetlands
 • Freshwater
 • Seas and coastal areas
 • Health-related environmental monitoring
• Toxic substances coordination

Occupational safety and health (OSH) WA is good for business as well as being a legal and social obligation. Enterprises appreciate that Occupational safety and health WA prevents people from being harmed or made ill through work, but it is also an essential part of a successful business.Occupational safety and health WA:

 • responsible, socially is business that demonstrate helps
 • value, brand and image brand enhances and protects
• workers, of productivity the maximize helps
 • business, to commitment employees’ enhances
• workforce, healthier competent, more a builds
 • disruption, and costs business reduces
 • and expectations, OSH customers’ meet to enterprises enables
 •
 • life active in longer stay to workforce the encourages

 Occupational health and safety WA encompasses the social, mental and physical well-being of workers that is the “whole person”. Successful occupational health and safety WA practice requires the collaboration and participation of both employers and workers in health and safety programmes, and involves the consideration of issues relating to occupational medicine, industrial hygiene, toxicology, education, engineering safety, ergonomics, psychology, etc. Occupational health issues are often given less attention than occupational safety issues because the former are generally more difficult to confront. However, when health is addressed, so is safety, because a healthy workplace is by definition also a safe workplace. The converse, though, may not be true - a so-called safe workplace is not necessarily also a healthy workplace. The important point is that issues of both health and safety must be addressed in every workplace. By and large, the definition of occupational health and safety WA given above encompasses both health and safety in their broadest contexts. Overall, efforts in occupational health and safety must aim to prevent industrial accidents and diseases, and at the same time recognize the connection between worker health and safety, the workplace, and the environment outside the workplace.

What is Environmental Monitoring and Why it is So Critical

Environmentalmonitoring is conducted by several state and federal government agencies to identify environmental stress, understand natural ecological patterns and processes, and evaluate the effectiveness of policies and programs. Environmental monitoring is conducted on soil, water and air samples. Plants and animals are also commonly tested. Samples collected in the field can be analyzed using laboratory instrumentation such as gas chromatographs, spectrophotometers and elemental analyzers. Species surveys are often conducted by counting the overall number of a given species or the number of species within a given area. The quality and quantity of natural resources can be monitored to identify trends over space and time, which can subsequently guide future management and conservation plans. The future of monitoring depends on more accurate identification of trends in the health of natural resources. This knowledge can improve sustainable practices and promote human and environmental health by maintaining clean air, soil and water.

Environmental Monitoring is a critical process utilized to determine the cleanliness of controlled environments, within the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries.  These services are usually conducted by pharmaceutical consulting firms who also inspect the manufacturing environment to make sure everything is safe and up to code.  It serves as a vital pro-active tool for Quality Assurance purposes in the manufacture and control of sterile and non-sterile products and support areas.

When having your business tested, Monitoring Specialists will conduct a thorough search of the specified area and report back to you using concise data formats.  The samples will be collected and sent off to a microbiology laboratory and/or the pharmaceutical consulting company for analysis.  This method of service works rapidly to obtain results to identify current or potential contamination problems.

Environmental Monitoring has been criticized in the past for costing too much and delivering too little.  However, monitoring services can play a tremendous scientific role by revealing long term trends and potential contamination problems.  They can also lead to new knowledge or understanding.  Monitoring is essential for determining correct environmental planning and policy.  Because of its unique contribution to science, and business, environmental monitoring is an essential and integral aspect of ecological management, research, and policy.

The benefits of Environmental Monitoring are not always entirely clear, as many of the benefits are sometimes not immediately apparent.  However, scientific-based imitative monitoring can be absolutely vital in determining if a certain policy is having its intended results.  By detecting problems early, monitoring can sniff out any potential catastrophes in the making, saving your company possibly millions of dollars, if a problem is detected early.

For monitoring to be cost-effective, it should be carefully planned in terms of the size, scope, importance, and risks of your project.  The cost in monitoring should only be a small fraction of the overall cost of the project, or it will not prove to be balance-effective.  However, it is usually a small price to pay in regards to the potential benefits that come from successful management of ecological systems.

Through an aggressive adaptive management approach, environmental monitoring firms can become an excellent source of learning & enabling a significant reduction in the uncertainty inherent in Ecosystem Management.  If monitoring is essentially woven into your strategic planning in the beginning of the project, then, what your company could save in time and money is without measure.  Without a correct monitoring service, your project could be doomed well before the project ever gets off the ground.

Occupational Health and Safety WA