At Modular Ducting Systems we are extremely conscious of the need to provide workers with a safe, healthy workplace through ventilation systems that effectively extract dust and fumes.
Recently, WorkSafe have been auditing welding and joinery businesses throughout New Zealand to ensure that the air quality in their facilities meets the new standards. They’ve already looked at welding, seed cleaning, and joinery workshops and they’re just getting started. We think the food industry will be in their sights next.
If you’re a PCBU this concerns you!
A PCBU (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking) is a key concept in the New Zealand Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 that every business owner and/or manager must understand. It means that anyone who directs or carries out work bears the primary duty of care for worker health and safety.
Get ahead of the legislation before it gets you
Because there is personal legal responsibility involved in the air quality at your business, it makes sense to protect yourself by being fully compliant with the air quality regulations. We think the smartest way forward is to follow WorkSafe’s instructions to the letter, eat the cost of upgrading your dust and fume extraction system, and move forward from there.
What are the PCBU’s responsibilities?
You have a duty to monitor the health of your workers and the conditions at the workplace to ensure that they are not injured or made ill by their work. That includes eliminating or at least minimising risks as far as is reasonably practicable.
But apart from your legal obligations, there are ethical reasons as well.
Why a little dust is a big health hazard
When you have dust in the air, your workers can inhale it. Their upper respiratory system will usually filter out the larger particles, but the smaller ones can sneak past and, over time, cause irreversible lung damage, including occupational asthma and lung cancer. Skin and eyes can also be seriously affected by dust. Add fumes from glues, resins, and wood treatment chemicals, and you have a recipe for serious long-term health problems that you can be held responsible for.
Modular Ducting Systems LEV dust control systems
WorkSafe wants priority to be given to dust control systems that protect multiple workers at a time. Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) can protect everyone in the workplace, as opposed to Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE), which only protects the person wearing it.
We can work with any-sized businesses
Protecting small businesses with one or two people is just as important as those employing 50 or 100 people. We work with people throughout the South Island to provide WorkSafe-compliant dust extraction systems, custom-made to their needs.
Looking to the future
We believe that the regulations around workplace air quality are only going to get stricter. Getting ahead of it now, before you get a compliance notice from WorkSafe, makes excellent business sense. You’ll mitigate your personal risk and do the right thing by your workforce.
If you want to see how Modular Ducting Solutions can help, get in touch now for an obligation-free chat.