Chemical Safety Management Research Articles

What must be done to prevent another humidifier disinfectant disaster?

The humidifier disinfectant disaster (HDD) was not a simple poisoning accident by biocides, but a singular disaster in history created by chemicals in household products. This disaster was a result of the failure of a system for the management of chemical and product safety. Since the management authority for chemical usage safety is different from those for chemical safety in products, many blind areas for chemical safety management in products still remain. The ‘Act on the Registration and Evaluation, etc. of Chemical Substances (ARECS)’ or the new ‘Biocidal Product Act’ must not only address the blind areas in the management system for chemical and product safety, but also prevent a second HDD. To prevent another HDD, an integrated registration, evaluation, and management system for chemicals and consumer products must be incorporated into the ‘ARECS’ as an essential part for chemical safety in consumer products.

Chemical Safety in Academic Laboratories: An Exploratory Factor Analysis of Safe Work Practices & Facilities in a University

<p class="1"><span lang="EN-US">Academic laboratories considered as more hazardous than industry due to relaxed approach of academic management for chemical safety. This study designed to analyze the safe work practices and facilities by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using Varimax rotation. A designed checklist of 26 safety items administered personally in 68 academic laboratories in a Saudi university. From EFA, five factors were extracted: “Availability of laboratory safety documents (5 items, α = 0.92)”, “Maintenance of fume hood (2 items, α = 0.75)”, “Proper chemical storage (3 items, α = 0.64)”, “Proper use of fume hood for chemical handling (4 items, α = 0.62)” and “Laboratory safety labelling (2 items, α = 0.73)”. The results revealed the 5 factors model that grouped 16 safety items that may be crucial for chemical storage, fume hood, laboratory safety plans and labels in the academic laboratories. The extracted factors derived from EFA are expected to help in the development of chemical safety management in the academic laboratories. </span></p>

Potential for MERLIN-Expo, an advanced tool for higher tier exposure assessment, within the EU chemical legislative frameworks

MERLIN-Expo merges and integrates advanced exposure assessment methodologies, allowing the building of complex scenarios involving several pollution sources and targets. The assessment of exposure and risks to human health from chemicals is of major concern for policy and ultimately benefits all citizens. The development and operational fusion of the advanced exposure assessment methodologies envisaged in the MERLIN-Expo tool will have a significant impact in the long term on several policies dealing with chemical safety management. There are more than 30 agencies in Europe related to exposure and risk evaluation of chemicals, which have an important role in implementing EU policies, having especially tasks of technical, scientific, operational and/or regulatory nature. The main purpose of the present paper is to introduce MERLIN-Expo and to highlight its potential for being effectively integrated within the group of tools available to assess the risk and exposure of chemicals for EU policy. The main results show that the tool is highly suitable for use in site-specific or local impact assessment, with minor modifications it can also be used for Plant Protection Products (PPPs), biocides and REACH, while major additions would be required for a comprehensive application in the field of consumer and worker exposure assessment.

Enabling Context-Awareness by Predicate Detection in Asynchronous Environments

Pervasive applications are involving more and more autonomous computing and communicating devices, augmented with the abilities of sensing and controlling the logical/physical environment. To enable context-awareness for such applications, we are challenged by the intrinsic asynchrony of the computing environment. Predicate detection is a well studied technique dedicated to detecting global predicates over asynchronous computations and can be employed to achieve context-awareness of the asynchronous environment. However, there is no methodological framework which guides us to systematically apply the abstract predicate detection theory to the development of concrete context-aware applications. To this end, we present the Predicate Detection-based Context-Awareness (PD-CA) framework. PD-CA maps the concepts of context-awareness to concepts of predicate detection. PD-CA also presents a design process of providing middleware support for context-aware applications. Under the guidance of the PD-CA framework, we design and implement the Middleware Infrastructure for Predicate detection in Asynchronous environments (MIPA). We also propose the programming toolkit to facilitate the development of context-aware applications based on MIPA, and demonstrate the use of the toolkit by a case study of a chemical plant safety management application. Experimental evaluations show the performance of MIPA in enabling context-awareness despite of the asynchrony.

Improvements of safety management system in Korean chemical industry after a large chemical accident

This study addresses the systematic changes in laws, regulations, business cultures, and accident responses of organizations on a national level for chemical safety management after a large chemical release accident. The hydrogen fluoride leakage accident in Gu-mi City, in which 5 workers were killed and 18 were injured, has led the government to construct more practical plans and guidelines for managing and responding to chemical disasters. The governmental reorganization against chemical accidents such as Joint inter-agency The Chemical Emergency Preparedness Center, which is a specialized agency focused on responding to chemical disasters, has also contributed to the technology used in responses to chemical accidents, and as a result, it has become possible to cope with disasters more efficiently through cooperation among relevant agencies. Regarding relevant laws and regulations, the government has launched and clarified various acts and programs for the handling, management, and assessment of chemical substances and chemical-related accidents. Moreover, private enterprises have been also making efforts to systematically manage safety issues and expand high-level safety culture. In this paper, we discuss the changes in approaches to handle chemical accidents from various perspectives and present a case in which the relevant agencies succeeded in responding relatively efficiently to a major chemical accident because of these changes.

Analysis of the Chemical Safety Facility Investment Performance in China

This paper adopts the accident incidence, the gross industry output value, the investment in safety facilities, and per capita wage of employment as the indexes to empirically analyze the investment performance of chemical safety facilities using time series data by VECM in China. The empirical results indicate that for China’s chemical industry, increasing investment fails to improve the short-term safety level significantly because of the offsetting behavior of workers. Over the long term, the offsetting behavior tends to disappear, and the chemical accident incidence can be decreased through increasing investment. Poor safety awareness among workers is one of the causes of accident incidences. The conclusions provide theoretical support for China to perfect chemical industry safety management.

Loss prevention at the startup stage in process safety management: From distributed cognition perspective with an accident case study

Organizational artifacts such as rules, procedures, or codes of practice play important roles in chemical process safety management. The violation of an organizational artifact can lead to major accidents. It is thus essential to understand the underlying significance of violations to coordination of organizational artifacts. Currently, there are rapid changes and development of chemical products which require developing new process in chemical plants. The pre-startup stage in the chemical process is especially prone to errors due to ill-defined work processes and the variety of jobs involved at this stage. However, human errors and understandings in the stage have not been given much of attention it deserves. This paper focuses on human errors in pre-startup stage: (1) An analysis of major industrial accidents in Korea was conducted. (2) A survey of related personnel in chemical plants was carried out to understand conditions of safety management on human error. (3) An accident case study at the pre-startup stage in a Korean chemical plant was conducted by applying the Fault Tree Analysis method to reveal failures of coordination of organizational artifacts. This paper adopted distributed cognition theories to analyze the underlying implications of such failures because these theories have the power to examine the relationship between human operators and artifacts in a system.This study highlights the importance of considering organizational artifacts related to human error in safety management. The results may help people, who are related to a process of pre-startup stage in chemical plants, to improve safety of the work.

The Review on status of chemical safety management policies and limits through humidifier disinfectants accident.

The Review on status of chemical safety management policies and limits through humidifier disinfectants accident.

Safe science classrooms: Teacher training through serious educational games

STIMULATE (Science Training Immersive Modules for University Learning Around Teacher Education) is a Serious Educational Game (SEG) designed to advance science teacher preparation and development, by creating a laboratory safety module that immerse teachers in scenarios previously taught using only hypothetical case studies. This study employed a two-phase design based methodology. The first phase was a cognitive task analysis of a convenience sample (n=10) of preservice and in-service science teachers in which they described their key issues and concerns regarding chemical laboratory safety planning, response, management plan, and assessment. Phase 2 examined the usability and effectiveness of STIMULATE’s initial build on 31 preservice teachers. The t-test for equality of means demonstrates that there is a statistically significant difference between pretest and posttest scores, t(30)=14.79, p<.001, d=2.56 (large) Overall, results suggest positive learning gains from the preservice science teachers who engaged in STIMULATE program.

Environmental Safety and Health Issues Relating to Hazardous Wastes Generated by Chemical Industries

The importance of chemical products in todays society is known, which can increase food production, improve the quality of life and extend the lifespan. However, their dangers are also obvious. In addition, a large number of chemical accidents, that produce chemicals, continue to take place in the chemical industries in spite of the great improvement in the safety management standard of worldwide chemical industries. Such accidents are taking place not only in the developing countries, but also in developed countries, which result in a lot of property loss, death and serious environmental issues with long term negative effects. Therefore, how to live with these substances and how to handle, use and dispose them safely have attracted much attention because chemical safety and risk management of chemicals have formed an international challenge.

化学物質安全のためのレギュラトリーサイエンス －化学物質のリスク評価・管理の観点からの考察－

化学物質安全のためのレギュラトリーサイエンス －化学物質のリスク評価・管理の観点からの考察－

The influencing factors of the WTP for the risk reduction of chemical industry accidents in China

To explore the factors that influence respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the risk reduction of chemical industry accidents, a questionnaire survey combined with contingent valuation and psychometric paradigm methods were conducted in the city of Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, China. Both traditional socioeconomic variables and perceived characteristics of the hazards were considered in this study, and a Tobit model was used to find the factors influencing WTP under three risk reduction scenarios. The results showed that three demographic characteristics, age, gender, and income, significantly affected the WTP for chemical risk reduction. In addition, three extracted public risk perception factors, effect, knowledge, and trust, also strongly affected the WTP. The mean WTP value increased as the magnitude of the risk reduction increased. The number of factors influencing the WTP decreased as the reduction level improved, and only the effect factor had a significant influence on the WTP for a higher level (80%) of risk reduction. The cost for chemical safety management of Yancheng was calculated, and the optimized risk reduction level was determined. These findings can assist governments and policy makers to formulate suitable strategies for risk control, to reach target groups of people to develop effective communication, and to provide specific references for the best investment for the security of local residents.

Many New Measures to Build Safer Chemical Enterprises

This paper presents an account of China's chemical safety management. It starts from the chemical safety legislation and aims to provide the reader with information on current safety priorities. It examines the chemical safety license systems and priorities for supervision and management in details. The chemical safety licenses systems such as the safe production license and safe use license of chemicals have played critical roles in promoting the chemical management. The concept of Two Emphases and One Major are introduced with the aims of reducing major chemical accidents. There is also a brief discuss on chemical process safety to achieve the solid safety management in chemical enterprises. Therefore, the much safer chemical enterprises may be achieved through these new measures.

Development and Exploitation of Information System for Safety Management of Chemicals

Development and Exploitation of Information System for Safety Management of Chemicals

The Phase-Out of Hazardous Substances in Troubled Waters

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) of 2000 is the EU's first law establishing legal obligations to move towards eliminating the emission of hazardous substances into EU's waters within 20 years. This recognises that the safe way to deal with substances which can cause long-term or irreversible damage is to aim at zero or background concentrations rather than setting tolerable limits as favoured by conventional chemical risk assessment methods. There is a long way to go from the WFD's respective legal obligations to ultimately achieving zero emissions for selected hazardous substances. In 2010 Greenpeace undertook a first spot check of the quality of implementing those obligations for the pollutant nonylphenol (NP), a hazardous water pollutant which has been severely restricted in the EU since 2003. Based on these findings this paper analyses the repercussions from a broader perspective of the legal situation, including whether and when legal breaches are likely to occur and what the consequences are for the political objectives of chemical safety management. To this end, the paper examines the shared obligations between the EU and its Member States and the links to the new EU chemical safety management rules under REACh.

Chemical safety management in Hong Kong

Chemicals are widely used nowadays and the risk due to occupational exposure is considerable. In order to prevent the chemical hazard from being realized, an effective safety information management system should be provided. Good hazard communication has to be maintained between manufacturers (or suppliers) and users, and between the management and workers. Accurate information, awareness, and alertness are the three basic elements. Proper labelling and provision of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are important for the control of chemical hazards and treatment of diseases caused by chemicals. Expert advice can also be obtained from the appropriate authorities or enquiry centres.

指定発言 大学における化学物質管理と安衛法(シンポジウム4:労働安全衛生法と大学法人化,地方の時代の産業保健,第79回日本産業衛生学会)

指定発言 大学における化学物質管理と安衛法(シンポジウム4:労働安全衛生法と大学法人化,地方の時代の産業保健,第79回日本産業衛生学会)

Operational atmospheric modeling system CARIS for effective emergency response associated with hazardous chemical releases in Korea.

The Chemical Accidents Response Information System (CARIS) was developed at the Center for Chemical Safety Management in South Korea in order to track and predict the dispersion of hazardous chemicals in the case of an accident or terrorist attack involving chemical companies. The main objective of CARIS is to facilitate an efficient emergency response to hazardous chemical accidents by rapidly providing key information in the decision-making process. In particular, the atmospheric modeling system implemented in CARIS, which is composed of a real-time numerical weather forecasting model and an air pollution dispersion model, can be used as a tool to forecast concentrations and to provide a wide range of assessments associated with various hazardous chemicals in real time. This article introduces the components of CARIS and describes its operational modeling system. Some examples of the operational modeling system and its use for emergency preparedness are presented and discussed. Finally, this article evaluates the current numerical weather prediction model for Korea.

Safety Management and Hazard Evaluation of the Reactive Chemicals ─ Part 3 ─

Safety Management and Hazard Evaluation of the Reactive Chemicals ─ Part 3 ─

Safety Management and Hazard Evaluation of the Reactive Chemicals ─ Part 1 ─

Safety Management and Hazard Evaluation of the Reactive Chemicals ─ Part 1 ─