The most critical health hazard – chemical hazard

Health hazard is one of the dangerous hazard that may harm people by affecting their health
in a short term or long term. Based on the hirarc table, the most critical hazard that exhibit
during the concreting and finishing work is during the brick and concrete cutting where the
workers can be exposed to chemical hazard which is exposure to excessive silica dust from
the material such as cement.
The reason why this chemical hazard contribute to the most critical health hazard is
because the silica dust contain small particle that can enter our body through our respiratory
and then affect the health of our body. Exposure to cement dust can irritate eyes, nose, throat
and the upper respiratory system. Besides skin contact can cause moderate irritation where it
can thickening or cracking the skin to severe skin damage that resulting from chemical
burns. Hazard from concreting and finishing work also can affect in long term where silica
exposure from cement dust can lead to lung injuries including silicosis and lung cancer.
All the potential health hazard should be avoid to prevent any dangerous of illness and
skin damage to workers that handle it. As the workers that is involved in concreting work will
be expose to chemical hazard, some of precaution should be taken to prevent and reduce the
hazard. The control measures should be taken in accordance to the hierarchy of risk control
to select the most effective control for the activity. For handling concrete, the most effective
control is by using engineering control such as the employer should provide water basin in
the working area for the workers to rinse their eyes if they come into contact with cement
dust. In order to avoid skin damage, the workers should use soap and water to wash off dust.
If the ways does not work, they should go to see physician immediately.
Besides, using administrative control such as work rotation can be use to control the
hazard. It is because when workers rotate the concreting works, they do not expose to the
hazard all the time. Thus the direct contact with cement dust will be reduce. Last but not
least, the employer also need to play their role in the working area. The employer should
provide the personal protective equipment (PPE) to all the workers. For example they need to
provide respiratory mask to all the worker that handle the mixture of cement. It is because
they most likely to expose to the silica dust. By using respiratory mask such as P-95, N-95 or
R-95 can avoid the inhalation of silica dust. Other than that, the workers should wear glove
and safety boot when mixing the cement. It is to reduce direct contact with the wet concrete
that may cause skin irritation.
 P-95 N-95 R-95

Figure 1: The type of respiratory mask that can reduce the direct inhalation of cement dust.

References

United States Department Of Labor. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2019, from
https://www.osha.gov/Publications/concrete_manufacturing.html.

Discussion

I. Safety Hazard (working at height)

Safety hazard are unsafe working conditions that can cause injury, illness and death. Safety
hazard are the most common workplace hazards. There are many types of safety hazard that
can occur at the workplace such as manual handling concrete, working at height, using crane
to transfer concrete and also machinery used at site.
Based on HIRARC table, the most critical hazard for safety hazard at workplace is
working at height. This is because most of the construction will exposed to work at high
place. The effect of the hazard are workers can fall from edges, will had head injury, or
broken leg. Other than that, the tendency for objects easier to fall is high. This hazard not
only will harm workers that working at the top place but it is also can harm workers or people
at the below of the construction.
All the potential hazard can be avoid by controlling few things at the construction site.
For engineering control part, they can provide strength handrail and suitable gaps in
perimeter protection. Besides that, engineering control also can provide net to catch the
object from falling down. For control measures by administrative part, workers need to have
a proper training on handling concrete works especially at height. In order to avoid the
workers or objects fall from height, they need to know how to handle work at height and
work safely. Lastly for PPE control part, each worker should wear safety helmet, safety
hardness, safety vest and safety boot/shoes especially when working at height. This is the
most simple things that works can do to avoid any risk that can happened at workplace.
Figure below show the example of PPE equipment when working at height.
Figure 3: PPE Equipment Working at Height