Using chemicals or other hazardous substances at work can put people's health at risk. CoSHH law requires employers to control exposure to prevent ill health. An employer should identify the various tasks within the workplace and then conduct a risk assessment for each task. This article will look at an office cleaning company and will highlight some of the dangers associated with using chemicals and the risks associated to employees and the importance of doing task based risk assessments. An office cleaning contractor employs a large number of mainly unskilled staff. The workers are placed in small teams and work late in the evening. Supervision is limited as the office spans a large area with a number of teams at work at one time. An employer must make sure that staff are not exposed to hazardous substances and has controls in place to monitor this. All staff must be given instruction and training in the use of the materials supplied by the contracting company and not the cleaning products found in the offices. Any staff taken on in a temporary capacity must also be given prior instruction and training. Each task that an employee is involved in, should be individually CoSHH assessed. So although one type of cleaning solution may be used for a number of tasks, it is not the solution being assessed but the task involved. Using bleach to clean the toilets for example, will require an assessment which indicates that workers wear the correct PPE (gloves) and that makes employees aware that chemicals such as acid cleaners, can lead to toxic fume emissions. Another task based assessment will need to be carried out when using bleach to clean the office floors,and this will indicate the need for safety signs such as those used on wet floors. The cleaning solution used in a floor cleaning task will need a risk assessment doing when considering adding the solution to the floor washing machine. The substance needs mixing with water to wash the floors and this involves an employee pouring the concentrated chemical substance into a plastic jug to mix with the water. The assessment should clearly identify the hazards associated with doing this task. A separate assessment will need to be undertaken as to the order of cleaning, which again will be highlighted in the task based CoSHH risk assessment. For example, to avoid cross contamination, employees should clean the office floors in order of office floor first, then kitchen and lastly washrooms. An employer may also choose to use colour coded cloths, mops and buckets. This eliminates the likelihood of transferring bacteria. For each task under taken by an employee, the risk assessment should indicate which coloured cloth for example, should be used in each instance. This indicates the importance of keeping all employees, including contractors, informed of any changes to the task based assessment. Any risk assessment and management activities will need to be reviewed regularly to ensure that they are up to date. It is also important to remember that a task based risk assessment also involves 'inactive' tasks. This could mean something such as the storage of chemical substances. This task alone could present certain risks which would need addressing and managing.
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