EHS on Tap

It’s one of the most instantly recognizable hazards when you step onto many worksites—noise. A lot of us tend to think, well, just use some PPE, and that’s that. However, there’s much more to a hearing conservation program than meets the eye, or, shall we say, meets the ear. What are some of the things you may be overlooking in your hearing conservation efforts, from hidden risks to the value of a...

We all know that protecting employees from safety and environmental hazards is just the right thing to do, but business needs cannot be ignored. Going beyond compliance, how can an EHS manager demonstrate to business stakeholders the return on investment of their efforts—or, to put it another way, what is the return on safety in the organization? Well, we’re talking with an expert today who can he...

When we talk about safety culture, often the focus is on soft skills—things like effective leadership, good communication, management and employee buy-in, and so forth. However, what many EHS managers may be overlooking in their day-to-day efforts to build safety culture is the role of technology. Are you leveraging new innovations to build the best safety program possible at your organization? We...

If you’re an EHS professional, your organization’s safety culture must be a major focus—but a strong culture can be tricky to build. Sure, it’s easy to say that you want a safety culture built on inspiration, not fear, and that the goal is for employee engagement in safety to be positively pursued, not mandated. But how do you walk that line between encouragement and discipline, between being a sa...

Since the presidential election in 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency and its regulatory agenda have been no stranger to controversy. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has stated multiple times that his goal is to roll back regulations, and while some rules have been delayed, repealed, or otherwise rendered toothless, most regs are still on the books. However, some of the rhetoric may have lur...

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s electronic reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses, also known at the recordkeeping and electronic submission rule, has been a source of confusion for many EHS professionals. Deadlines for compliance have been delayed time and again, and some professionals aren’t even sure what compliance means for them and their organizations. Fortunately,...

Managing the use and abuse of drugs in the workplace is getting trickier by the day. Between a national wave of marijuana legalization and an opioid epidemic, EHS pros nationwide have their hands full staying in line with both federal and local laws while also keeping their workplaces safe and incident-free. It can be tough to know what sorts of policies are best for employers in the current envir...

Way back in 2012 the Hazardous Waste Electronic Manifest Establishment Act (also known as the e-Manifest Act) directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish a hazardous waste e-Manifesting system. After over 5 years of development, the EPA is ready to launch the e-Manifest system on June 30th. But what does it all mean for generators and transporters of hazardous waste? Here with u...

A robust incident investigation process driven by effective root cause analysis is a critical component of any safety and health program. When safety professionals employ a methodical approach, they provide information that helps determine the basic cause of an incident and leads to the creation of processes, policies, and methodologies to prevent reoccurrences of similar incidents. In short, you...

New technologies are changing the workforce worldwide, and the environment, health, and safety field isn’t immune to the constantly changing landscape. New devices, software, and processes are revolutionizing EHS and forcing professionals to adapt their skill sets accordingly. And it isn’t going to stop—in fact, our guest, Dave Johnson, chief editor of Industrial Safety and Hygiene News, says that...

Today we’re focusing on the health part of EHS—mental health, to be specific. The mental health of employees at your organization is an important factor affecting everything from the company’s efficiency to the likelihood of a violent incident. Unfortunately, it’s also a factor that is all too easily overlooked. Employee assistance programs, or EAPs for short, are a great tool for creating a happi...

In episode 26 of EHS on Tap, we dive into a topic that can sometimes be a bit intimidating for EHS professionals—implementing EHS software at their organizations. Businesses worldwide are making the transition from paper to pixels, and it seems like new software solutions are popping up every day offering new ways to manage EHS. As any safety pro knows, it can be difficult to get management to buy...

For our 25th episode, sponsored by SafeStart, we’re taking a look at the top 3 safety challenges revealed by SafeStart’s First Annual Safety Progress Report released earlier this year. This report was based on our annual survey of EHS pros just like you, so some of these challenges will probably sound familiar! Here with us today to lend his expert advice on these safety challenges is Tim Page-Bot...

Active shooter and other workplace violence incidents vary by environment, motive and perpetrators, but there are common threads that can be used to create a solid safety program and employee training. Although it can be difficult to engage employees in such training, it is essential to empower the workforce to prevent and respond to critical incidents. In this episode of EHS on Tap, we discuss ho...

Summer is around the corner, and with increased temperatures come increased risk of heat stress incidents in the workplace. Workers who are exposed to extreme heat or work in hot environments indoors or outdoors, or even those engaged in strenuous physical activities, may be at risk for heat stress. And heat stress can cause all sorts of illnesses - heat stroke, heat exhaustion, or even death. Emp...

OSHA’s lockout/tagout rule aims at protecting workers from hazardous energy in the workplace. Dave Galt, BLR’s Senior Legal Editor for Safety and resident lockout/tagout expert joins us to address issues such as: Does OSHA’s standard reflect current technology? What are some of the alternative methods that can be used that offer the same protections as lockout-tagout? And, under the Trump administ...

Environmental managers are always thinking about how their companies or facilities are complying with federal, state, and local regulations. Many use environmental audits as tools to help assess compliance liabilities and provide a basis for minimizing those liabilities by bringing to light areas of noncompliance. This leads to implementation of corrective measures before federal or state inspecto...

“Safety culture” is top priority for every safety manager these days, but how to shape a culture is a continual challenge. Most of the time, the focus is on the attitudes of managers and supervisors that work directly with workers and improving employee engagement, but a successful safety culture also requires the most senior leaders of an organization to provide effective safety leadership. But w...

All employers required to keep injury and illness records are impacted by the improved tracking of the workplace injuries and illnesses rule, and more than 460,000 employers will need to electronically submit records for public scrutiny under OSHA’s recent rulemaking. Many believe the antiretaliation provision of the rule will be eliminated as soon as OSHA leadership moves in. But what about the e...

The new administration has been with us for a few weeks now, and we have seen a lot of activity involving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). With President Trump’s new Executive Order directing federal agencies to repeal two regulations for every new one issued, his promise to roll back most of EPA’s regulations, and many in Congress calling for the agency to be eliminated entirely, things...

OSHA announced its silica final rule last spring and it immediately received criticism from industry groups. These groups call the standard unobtainable and very costly--and they claim that the rule isn’t really necessary to improve worker safety. The rule has spawned lawsuits and speculation that a Republican-controlled Congress could take action to overturn it. Adele Abrams, a preeminent occupat...

On this episode of EHS on Tap, we speak with Seth Brown about the costs associated with stormwater regulations as well as the key roles of businesses, municipalities, and communities in managing effective stormwater programs.

Emily Remmel speaks with attorney Adele Abrams on OSHA's recent rulemaking for walking working surfaces that goes into effect January 17, 2017.

On this episode of EHS on Tap, Emily Remmel talks to Scott Dunsmore of Lion Technologies about EPA’s recent rulemaking finalizing regulations on hazardous waste generators.

On this episode, we speak with Alden Davis about the situational awareness of animals in their natural environments as compared to humans in the everyday work environment.