ABESTOS MANAGEMENT ARE YOU AWARE?
Simon Olliff, Managing Director at Banyard Solutions wants to know whether asbestos exposure is seen as a problem of the past, or if we are still vigilant.
Mesothelioma – just one of the rare, aggressive, forms of cancer asbestos exposure can cause - took 2,515 lives in the UK in 2014. That equates to five full Jumbo Jets. In the same year, 2,717 new cases of this disease were reported.
Since the early 1970’s, mesothelioma mortality rates have increased more than nine-fold in Great Britain, 902% in males and 692% in females; expected to peak between 2017-2018. If there was an aviation incident involving just one Jumbo Jet resulting in loss of human life, it would be all over global and national news for weeks, with experts debating the causes and consequences. Yet asbestos-related diseases including asbestos-related lung cancer, asbestosis, and pleural lung thickening, collectively kill around 5,000 workers every single year and these deaths are unreported. That’s 10 full Jumbo Jets.
The 1999 Asbestos Prohibitions Amendment Regulations officially banned the importation, supply and use of all forms of asbestos in the UK, but it can still be found in any industrial or residential buildings built or refurbished before the year 2000. Buildings that your employees are working on right now. Alarm bells starting to ring?
For too long it was seen as a wonder product; an effective insulator and fire proofer that was cheap to buy, resulting in organisations incorporating it into as many construction projects as possible - in locations spanning schools, hospitals, prisons and Government buildings.
Through our ignorance, we let a generation down; badly and are still seeing the repercussions from such negligence. In December 2016, two Essex-based companies received fines for knowingly exposing workers to asbestos over a number of years. Basildon Crown Court were told how asbestos was initially found when
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Connect Packaging Ltd moved into industrial units, but employers failed to act to control the risk at the time, consequently exposing risk from airborne asbestos fibres. Connect Packaging Ltd later rented part of the facility to Creo Retail Marketing Ltd who, after undertaking its own asbestos survey, also confirmed the presence of the material and therefore the potential exposure.
Workers remained exposed to these risks whilst the companies debated which organisation was responsible for the removal of the asbestos, with
“FOR TOO LONG IT WAS SEEN
AS A WONDER PRODUCT.”
no effective, preventative measures put in place.
Ultimately, Connect Packaging was fined £8,150 and Creo Retail Marketing £150,000 for breaching elements of the Health & Safety at Work Act and exposing their workforces.
Higher risk work with asbestos must only be done by a licensed contractor but decisions on whether any work is licensable is based on the risk. All non-licensed work still must be carried out with effective controls in place. For some types of work, employers must meet additional requirements – known as notifiable non-licensed work (NNLW), requiring them to:
• Notify work with asbestos the relevant enforcing authority
• Designate and identify areas where the work is being done
• Ensure medical examinations are carried out
• Maintain registers of work (health records)
Examples of notifiable non- licensed work includes the removal of asbestos cement products and small areas of decorative coatings, maintenance of products containing asbestos and drilling of textured decorative coatings for installation of fixtures/fittings. There are more.
The revised Control of Asbestos Regulations enforced in 2012 updated previous asbestos regulations, changing non-licensed work requirements, enhancing the notification of work, medical surveillance and record keeping for employers. You have a duty to manage asbestos if you own or are in any way responsible for a building.
Only 55 countries worldwide have banned the substance and employers worldwide do not take the issue as seriously as they should. Don’t become a court case or an organisation that got it wrong when it is so easy to get it right. Get asbestos aware now.
www.banyardsolutions.co.uk www.tomorrowshs.com
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