Overexposure to certain materials we work with can cause health problems. There are three ways these materials can get into our bodies:
- Inhaling hazardous airborne vapors, dusts, or fibers can be harmful to health. Effects range from headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems to far more serious—sometimes even fatal—ailments.
- Swallowing hazardous substances can poison you or cause serious internal damage. Though you’re unlikely to actually drink a hazardous substance, you could swallow it if it gets on food, a coffee mug, or even your hands.
- Skin and eye contact can irritate or burn and may cause serious eye damage, recurring allergies, or a variety of other problems. Some chemicals can enter the bloodstream through skin contact, which could poison you.
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If you accidentally bring these hazards home, they could also cause health problems for the people who share your home. Consider the results of a study that:
- Uncovered examples of family members suffering serious—even fatal—illness when workers unknowingly brought hazardous substances home from work on their clothes, tools, etc.
- Found family members had contracted serious illnesses like asbestosis and chronic beryllium disease.
- Listed other illnesses among workers’ family members that resulted from exposure to such highly hazardous substances as lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, pesticides, and other farm chemicals.
Hazardous materials can be transported home in several ways.
- Work clothing. Dust and particles on clothes can get into the air in your home as well as clinging to other surfaces. If you wash contaminated work clothes with other laundry, those items could become contaminated, too.
- Tools and equipment. Hand tools and other equipment that have had contact with hazardous substances can contaminate whatever they touch—furniture, flooring, a car, or truck.
- Work-related materials such as bags, rags, or scrap lumber can also be contaminated and spread contamination.
- Your body. If you have not carefully removed any hazardous substances from your hands, hair, or other body parts, you are likely to spread the contamination to whatever—and whomever—you touch.
Follow the rules for the material you’re working with. You may be required to:
- Ventilate work areas.
- Enclose hazardous operations.
- Enter areas only if you’re authorized, trained, and properly equipped.
- Use personal protective equipment (PPE) specifically designed to protect you against the specific hazardous materials you’re working with.
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Find out more at www.poisonprevention.org.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll look at more poison prevention precautions and examine a comprehensive online training resource stocked with prewritten and ready-to-go courses on dozens of key safety topics.