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Just had some information through at work that owing to new studies linking mild steel welding fume and lung cancer, more stringent requirements for ventilation and respiratory protection are starting to be enforced by the HSE. Not something I'd heard about previously, and I guess like a lot of this kind of thing the risk will be proportional to the volume of exposure, but just so you know......
More information here.
And another great British occupation gets outsourced to foreign countries with poor worker protection legislation.
This is exactly what the ERG are fighting to prevent.
This is exactly what the ERG are fighting to prevent.
Explain please. I don't understand how the UK's relationship with Europe has any impact on this.
I don’t understand how the UK’s relationship with Europe has any impact on this.
Post a no deal Brexit we can lower all of our standards to allow poor, cheap working practices to continue.
Ah, OK, that wasn't what I thought you meant.
It can be tricky to spot irony online
See this is why I only do Ti and allooominum
Steel is so not real.
Good to know, i'm a hobbyist who would have missed this if it wasn't here. Will mask up.
Thanks for the link. From a brief scan through, it doesn't seem like as a hobbyist there's much to worry about compared with, say, walking down the street while people start their cars on a cold morning*, though wearing a mask isn't going to hurt.
*(mostly) different gases I know, but as a comparison of exposure levels it seems similar.
Get a mask, airfed if possible, but at least wear sone sort of respiratory device.
Those fumes aint nice , and sucking in any amount is not good for you.
We've been running air-fed respirator type helmets (which are not cheap - decent ESAB one is about £600 + VAT) and overhead, boom type fume extractor hoods since 2007. As far as I can tell, this is all the HSE are attempting to get companies to implement. IMHO this is just good practice for any firm that values it's workforce.
The extractor hoods are also important in terms of those working nearby (but not welding and not, therefore, wearing air-fed helmets) in order to get fumes out of the building.
This will hit some small firms hard and might see some jobs go overseas, but I'd say it is certainly the right stance for the HSE to take, on balance
Thanks OP I'd count myself as a hobbyist, but I'm often arc welding mild steel in the garage (badly), I shall have to mask up for that.
Professionally I will have to flag it as something to highlight in our risk assessments, tech-specs, etc. I'm pretty sure lots of fabricators we've used in the past have good extraction, but I honestly don't know how many provide RPE by default for their welders...
This will hit some small firms hard and might see some jobs go overseas, but I’d say it is certainly the right stance for the HSE to take, on balance
Good point, thinking out loud, would some sort of short-intermediate term Government grant/subsidy for small companies looking to comply make sense? what with our impending "Brexit bonus" (sorry couldn't resist)...