Healthy workplaces – knowing and controlling the risks of dangerous substances

How healthy is your workplace? Are you familiar with the risks of the substances you handle and are they being properly managed? To make workers and employers aware about the relevant risks at their workplaces, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) recently launched a “Healthy Workplaces” campaign on managing dangerous substances. We talked to Ms Elke Schneider, a Senior Project Manager in the Prevention and Research Unit at EU-OSHA, to find out more.

According to the EU Roadmap on carcinogens, nearly 80 000 cancer deaths are attributed to work-related exposure to carcinogenic substances in the EU each year. Many of these deaths could be avoided by properly assessing the risks and controlling the substances.

What is the campaign about?

The campaign aims to raise awareness of the importance of protecting workers from risks due to exposure to dangerous substances and eliminate, or if this is not possible, manage the risks. It is the second such campaign on this topic organised by EU-OSHA.

In many businesses, in particular SMEs, there are misconceptions that they do not use dangerous substances, they are not affected by them and therefore there is no risk to their workers. However, experience shows that chemicals may be present at almost every workplace and there is a need to promote a preventive culture in companies.

According to Ms Schneider, about half of the diseases in the European schedule of occupational diseases are linked to exposure to dangerous substances.

In the campaign, a dangerous substance is considered to be any substance that poses a risk to workers’ safety and health. It can be in a gas, liquid or solid form, including aerosols, fumes and vapours and can include manufactured and process-generated substances, such as diesel exhaust or silica dust, and natural substances like crude oil or flour dust.