Safety: the gap between theory and practice

From workplace fires to the escape of hazardous gases or micro-organisms, and from ‘run-of-the-mill’ industrial accidents to runaway reactions: there exists an entire spectrum of safety risks in the world of factories and laboratories. ‘The good news is that most risks can be adequately mitigated, as long as you know what to do and actually take those measures,’ says Wim van Alphen, independent consultant in advanced safety management and occupational hygiene. ‘The bad news is that the latter is, in practice, far from always the case.’

‘Risks can generally be adequately mitigated, as long as you know what to do and actually take those measures’

In that respect, there is a difference between factories and labs, according to Van Alphen, who works with both. ‘Chemical factories are fairly straightforward when it comes to hazardous substances, because they work with a limited number of substances, albeit in large quantities,’ he explains. ‘Laboratories, on the other hand, often work with many hundreds of different substances, but in smaller quantities. And safety regimes there are generally less well managed.’

Calling in expertise

Labs are therefore potentially among the most hazardous workplaces — more so than chemical factories. This is also because many substances can amplify one another’s effects. The likelihood of such synergistic effects is far greater in labs than in factories.

‘On the other hand: if there is anywhere you can take proper measures, it is in a lab,’ says Van Alphen. ‘The space is manageable, you can install good fume cupboards, GAP cabinets or biosafety cabinets, and the rooms are smaller, which makes ventilation easier to control. In a large factory floor, all of that is far more difficult.’

‘In most laboratories, safety regimes are less well managed’

It is entirely possible, then, to set up a lab safely. But in practice, this is far from always the case. ‘You need to bring in the right expertise right from the design stage of your lab,’ Van Alphen emphasises. ‘When it comes to ventilation, for instance, you shouldn’t just hire the first ventilation firm you come across. The layout of your lab matters too. Particularly critical is the position of the fume cupboards relative to the air supply points and the doors.’ Fume cupboards should also not be placed along thoroughfares, as these areas are prone to air turbulence that can draw substances out of the cupboard, even when the extraction systems meet the most stringent requirements.

‘Those extraction systems are rather like your car, where the handbook says it does one litre per 35 kilometres,’ Van Alphen observes. ‘When I drive my car around, it uses considerably more fuel than that. That fuel consumption is measured under strictly controlled conditions, in a factory-model situation. But in reality, performance is always inferior. Precisely the same applies to the extraction system of a fume cupboard.’

Monitoring

The problem, then, lies not so much in the regulations themselves, but more in how they play out on the shop floor, according to Van Alphen. ‘Every company and every lab must carry out a risk inventory and evaluation (RI&E), and monitoring forms part of that,’ he says. ‘Many companies manage this in-house, and that is perfectly permitted. The quality of that RI&E is assessed by certified specialists.’ In the Netherlands, there are approximately 450 certified occupational hygienists, 2,000 senior safety specialists (HVKs) and 200 occupational and organisational specialists (A&Os) engaged in this work.

‘But not all of them have expertise in laboratories,’ Van Alphen points out. ‘Fortunately, there are various national working groups that focus specifically on this area. As a result, there is at least a degree of peer review and dialogue on positions and the latest developments.’

The field is evolving, but Van Alphen finds the progress slow. ‘Fortunately, things are changing,’ he says. ‘TNO, for example, has made laboratory safety one of its priorities and is also conducting research into monitoring. It is a field filled with passionate people who have just one goal: improving safety and health in this sector.’