Using Task Based CoSHH Risk Assessments within a Cleaning Company
Posted: Thursday, April 22, 2010
by Dale
Ethos Solution Ltd
CoSHH law stipulates that employers must control exposure to chemicals and other hazardous substances in the workplace. Not to do so, would put their workers health at risk.
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.
The employer must ensure that the staff are not exposed to hazardous substances and have controls in place to do 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. For example, using bleach to clean the toilets will require an assessment which shows that an employee wears the correct PPE, gloves in this instance, and is aware that mixing bleach with other chemicals such as acid cleaners, can lead to toxic fumes being given off.
Using bleach to clean the office floors however, will need another task based assessment which will highlight the need for safety signs such as those which indicate wet floors on pedestrian routes.
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. To avoid cross contamination for example, workers should clean the 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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Dale Allen delivers CoSHH compliance as one of the UK's leading compliance authorities. Find out more about how you can use his online COSHH365 CoSHH asssessment tool to produce compliant CoSHH assessments with the benefits of a managed Safety Data Sheet library.
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