Safety Potpourri
HSE BLOG: April Safety Topics: Stay Alert and Prevent Accidents This Spring
Safety Stage: 8 Engaging April Safety Topics And Messages For Your Workplace – Safetystage
In closing, if you can have a chat with your high school chemistry teachers, to see if they want their unnecessary lab chemicals cleaned out and if they do, please reach out to Tim and John with their contact information so we can coordinate with them to get this inventoried and quoted for the summer chemical pickup. If you have general chemicals for pickup, please coordinate with us as well so we can start that process. It will probably be a big pickup so the sooner the better.
Have a great weekend and stay safe!
CA BOCES Health and Safety
Think Spring
In closing, if any of you have any questions that pertain to PESH/OSHA or specifics regarding Indoor Air Quality, please email Tim Richardson so he can take those questions/concerns to the Association of Educational Safety and Health Professionals Conference next week.
Enjoy your day and have a great weekend!!
Test
Creepy Crawlies
As a reminder, please send a letter to your local fire department that your fire inspections for the year have been conducted and that your facilities have successfully passed.
Have a great weekend and stay safe!
Eye Injury Awareness
Eye Injury Awareness
Asbestos and IAQ
Mental Health Awareness
The link is SAMHSA’s 988 Toolkit which has printable and orderable materials to draw awareness to not only the crisis hotline but signs to watch out for.
Have a great weekend and if you are off next week, enjoy your break!
February for Fitness and Fire Inspection Wrap-up
As we close down on another fire inspection season, we want to thank you and your staff who took time out of your busy schedules to take us around all of your buildings. The top five non-conformance items that we found this year were the following:
- Flammable and combustible items being stored on top of flammable storage cabinets.
- Classroom doors being chocked in the open position.
- Standpipe cabinets being blocked on stages.
- Electrical panels and service equipment being blocked.
- Exit diameters being encroached upon.
As you can see 4 of the 5 items really involve storage issues which unfortunately, is limited in most schools. We will be sending out a request for hazardous materials disposal, within the next month, which can help alleviate some of these issues. We are still focusing in on science storage areas and ask that your school district’s Chemical Hygiene Officer and Science Teachers be kept in the loop on the spring pickup.
We have started printing up more rescue window stickers, “Do Not Block” signs that are specific to electric panels/service equipment, and a few other labels that can serve as reminders for staff. If you need any “safety-related” stickers or labels, please reach out to Emily.
Enjoy your weekend and stay safe!
January Safety Topics
Smelly Stuff
The following is a summarized email to one of our districts that contains how we approach and excerpts from advisements we have received from the State. The italicized portion is from the NYSED Fire Desk and the bolded is from NYS DOH as referenced by the Fire Desk:
Thank you for reaching out with your concerns. You are not the only person who has asked this question. The NYS Health Department (NYSDOH) has a site dedicated to school environmental health program topics (Asthma & Air Quality included) here: opens in a new windowhttps://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/indoors/healthy_schools/topics.htm#indoor
The main source of concern with aerosol products is in changing the air quality in a space. These products can become asthma triggers in people who are sensitive to them. Currently there are not any laws or regulations about having aerosols in schools outside of the green cleaning program. Schools are required to purchase Green Cleaning Products to help keep the air quality in schools safer ( opens in a new windowhttps://www.p12.nysed.gov/facplan/GreenCleaning/greenclean.htm).
Also, schools are required through OSHA/PESH law to maintain a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) on file for all chemicals it purchases/uses on school grounds to maintain the health/safety of staff & students. SDS’s come from the product manufacturer, and they contain the ingredients in the product along with health/safety, first-aid, disposal, and emergency handling of that product. Schools are not required to have any chemicals on their grounds without having an SDS on file. Staff that bring chemical containing items from home are unknowingly violating this law since the school has no idea it is being used.
Fire safety can be factor when these products are introduced into the school environment through electrical devices that may not be Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL) approved and could become a fire hazard to the building if they have a failure while in use.
Below is information we received in the past from NYSDOH on this topic:
Based on our discussion regarding an increase in use of essential oil diffusers in classrooms, I did some research on the topic and how it can potentially affect IAQ and exposure scenarios. Based on that research along with discussions with DOH staff, we offer the following recommendation.
Since there are no formal policies on the use of such products at present, and we likewise do not have a policy on their use. However, consistent with our messaging regarding exposure ( opens in a new windowhttps://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/about/exposure.htm) and the prevalence of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in many similar products, ( opens in a new windowhttps://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/air_quality/vocs.htm) we recommend not using products that intentionally release VOCs in to the air. Ultimately, it would be up to the individual school districts to develop such policies.
Here are additional resources available to schools that include eliminating aerosols like essential oils from schools:
NYS Guide for Asthma Management in Schools(pp 7 & 30):
opens in a new windowhttp://www.p12.nysed.gov/sss/documents/NYSguideAsthmaManagementinSchools.pdf
American Lung Association (Asthma-Friendly Schools Initiative):
Unfortunately, this is often a difficult situation to handle but having a standard approach may help alleviate that confusion. Stay well and keep warm out there!