Sunday, January 20, 2013

Communicating Silica Hazards Using Safety Sign Standards

Geoffrey Peckham’s article, “Applied Semiotics: Communicating Silica Hazards Using New Best Practice Safety Sign Standards,” from the latest issue of the Construction Practice Specialty’s publication Blueprints, explains how industry-wide use of ANSI Z535.2-2011 principles can provide the construction industry with a standardized means to communicate silica hazards.

Many common construction activities, such as tunneling, dry sweeping, stonecutting and rock drilling, have the potential to place workers at risk of exposure to crystalline silica hazards.

A content-rich safety sign that employs graphical symbols, standardized severity level color-coding and carefully chosen wording can increase awareness of silica hazards in the workplace and can define and implement proper workplace procedures that use specific PPE. Click here to read more.