Hazards and Impacts

You investigate your surrounding in order to identify the most significant risks. These may be risks caused by 'hazards' or environmental 'impacts'.

Hazards are anything, biological, chemical physical that may cause harm. 'Impacts' are the changes, positive or negative, to the environment. 'Risk' estimates the chances of that possible harm being translated into actual damage to health or environment.

When health and environment assessments are carried out separately, they can lead to problems. e.g. The chemical trichloroethylene was associated with addiction and possible liver cancer and so replaced by the chemical 111trichloethane. Later it was found that this chemical damaged the ozone layer in the outer atmosphere. Trichloroethylene was re-introduced in many workplaces. It would have saved both the health and the environment, and time to remove the chemicals and find other ways to degrease.

Sources to help Risk Assessment

Hazards

Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Health

NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards

Emerging Environmental Issues UNEP

Significance

What aspects of your work pose the most significant risks to health and impacts on the environment? The main aim is to provide a priority list, not to allocate blame.

When carrying out a risk assessment:

Start with the immediate surroundings -
Are there any parts capable of causing immediate damage to people working ? Is there any substance in the air that may cause ill health? Are there any common complaints? Are there any wastes or processes that could contaminate land or pollute air or water?

Throughout the workplace
Are there any diseases or disorders more frequent than they should be - e.g. accidents or asthma? Are there any safety or environmental laws (see below) that may indicate where there may be significant risks?

Beyond the Workplace
Is there anything that goes out of the workplace, that may damage the land, air, water or people's health ?

Against every item, indicate the potential severity of the damage a scale of 1 (least) to 5 (most) . Consider the different damages that are involved. You may want to measure the costs of damage in monetary or human terms.

Then go through the lists again and mark the likelihood of the damage occurring on the same scales. Multiply them together and you get a priority list.