April - May 2021
CHEMICALS
W
hile 130,000 businesses are reportedly captured by the Hazardous Substances and Major Hazard Facilities regulations, the official mantra of “600-900 persons seriously harmed each year by unwanted exposure to chemicals in their workplace” presumably applies to all of the country’s 530,000 workplaces. Downgrading the flawed but effective HSNO Certified Handler requirement has inadvertently undermined an invaluable capability. The action deprived businesses, particularly SMEs, of an immediate and recognisable source of workplace chemical safety and compliance advice -- a safe chemical handling capability and emergency response knowledge – critical when a chemical incident occurs. PCBUs and SMEs must now devise their own solutions to ensure employees are competent to safely handle the chemicals with which they work.
So where to from here? Responsible Care is a global voluntary chemical industry initiative developed autonomously by the chemical industry for the chemical industry. Chemical suppliers continue to help customers achieve workplace chemical safety aspirations through product stewardship initiatives. To help solve the in-house chemical compliance dilemma in New Zealand, Responsible Care NZ (www. responsiblecarenz.com) delivers specialist and cost-effective Certified Handler standard training, complete with a certificate. Internationally, chemical industry leaders are moving away from relying on 40
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Chemical industry leads by example
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The chemical industry continues to lead by example, helping to ensure essential chemicals encountered at work and at home are safely managed - safeguarding employees, communities and our environment lagging indicators of safety performance in favour of identifying safer work practices and workplaces, by responding to workers’ suggestions about improvements. WorkSafe NZ has warned against business operators falling victim to uninformed and always expensive ‘consultants’. Responsible Care NZ site compliance assessments are non-threatening, effectively capturing and assessing chemical safety performance in a variety of workplaces. Conscientious business operators can add value by sourcing accurate, cost-effective workplace chemical safety advice and compliance tools from their suppliers, industry partners and Responsible Care NZ. The core problem Hundreds of business operators turned out for a free Responsible Care NZ compliance workshop, eager for accurate and practical advice, indicating an unsatisfied demand for assistance and education. Attendance highlighted the need to provide SMEs and others with the ability to access, correctly interpret and successfully implement complex regulations with clear and concise compliance advice. Inviting enquirers to “read the regulations” is falling
well short of the industry educational expectations arising from WorkSafe’s Statement of Intent 2016-2020. A proven strategy is government agencies collaborating with proactive industry associations to best achieve workplace safety aspirations. The problem is that SMEs rarely join associations. However they all obtain their chemical requirements from suppliers and can benefit from product stewardship advice and cost-effective industry compliance initiatives. Responsible Care NZ extols less regulation in favour of enabling business operators to be increasingly self-sufficient, using cost-effective products and services such as site compliance assessments and specialist training. The focus is keeping people safe around the chemicals we encounter every day, by once again adding value to businesses. Proven, collaborative and cost-effective initiatives to raise awareness and improve workplace chemical safety performance include: • Joint agency and industry-focused local compliance workshops at times convenient to SME operators. • WorkSafe NZ inspectors distributing free copies of user-friendly ‘compliance
tools’ such as the Storage of Hazardous Substances HSNO Approved Code of Practice and posters explaining GHS pictogrammes • Supporting industry initiatives such as product stewardship • Referencing industry ‘compliance tools’ • Upskilling workplace inspectors in chemical safety. • Encouraging ‘no blame’ reporting of incidents • Acknowledging successful, proactive industry compliance initiatives • Restoring the status of Approved Industry Codes of Practice A refreshed and energized government strategy for improving workplace chemical safety is both welcome and essential if we are to significantly improve sub-standard performance and learn from our successes and shortfalls. Expanding mutually beneficial government- industry partnerships helping business operators ‘do the right thing’ with minimal fuss and expense should be ‘a no brainer’. Chemical suppliers are ‘Impatient optimists’. They know we can all collectively do better through continuous improvement. +64 4 499 4311 info@responsiblecarenz.com www.responsiblecarenz.com
