In February 2019 HSE issued an alert about a change in control expections for exposure to welding fumes including mild steel welding. This was announced due to new evidence from the International Agency for Research on Cancer that exposure to mild steel welding fumes can cause lung cancer and possibly lung cancer.
With this new information coming to light HSE have been revising its guidance and it has now been published. This is vital information for employers, to ensure they are protecting their work force adequately and for employees who do welding, to ensure they know their rights and use the correct control measures.
The CoSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) guidance for welding has been published here: https://bit.ly/34Y7dXa
HSE have released further guidance about how to protect your workers and how to best manage exposure: https://bit.ly/2qQhlCw
Following the release of this guidance HSE have announced that their inspectors will be visiting businessess across the country to check that they are complying with the law.
At APS UK our job is to help you protect your workers. If your business does welding and would like your system testing to check its suitability, our qualified engineers would be happy to test your system and provide a thorough report. We can recommend and install any improvements that may be required. Alternatively if you need a system designing and installing we can also do that.
As the HSE points out "The most effective way to reduce welding fume is to capture it at source, protecting the welder and preventing fume spreading". A Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) system is the most effective way to do this.
Call our office on 01904 215101 or email us at [email protected] for further information.