Food safety directives such as the target to reduce foodbourne campylobacter poisoning in NZ by 20% by 2025 do not speak to the occupational exposure concerns for workers in facilities where powerful antimicrobial chemicals use is increased/introduced.
No valid workplace exposure standard is set for the combinations of chemicals used due to the inability to lab produce air samples similar to what the workers are exposed to because of daily processing variables e.g. organic loading, chemical residues left between shifts, self-regulated dosing systems, performance of upstream equipment/people, blocked filters etc. etc.
The most powerful antimicrobial used produces chlorine dioxide gas so that is our facilities set WES we work too and the controls implemented are to combat that exposure e.g. automated mixing/dosing/dilution/shutdown systems, ventilation etc.
But because of the limitations associated with air sampling and reports of health symptoms workers are required to wear full face respirators with P3 filters which makes the head piece heavy and cumbersome. To retain workers, workers were only required to don the PPE should Cl02 monitors alert or an odour is detected. That was to ad hoc for me because even when the monitors were not going off the odour and physical reactions said something was wrong so management have agreed to extend conveyor systems etc. to transport the product to the workers, working outside of the hazardous zone, so that 2/3s of my exposed workers removed from the hazard.
Now the change of process means that two workers will now need to work in the hazardous area for up to an hour at a time several times throughout the shift and the work they will be doing is physical incl. up and down steps, under machines and from room to room in a wet work environment.
So my question is how much physical activity can we expect to ask of someone in a full face respirator taking into account carbon dioxide, wet environment/filters etc.
I am trying to make a case to keep the 2 workers out of that environment by investing in equipment that will not require them to go in (in a time where capital expenditure is on hold for 12 months) or they write the product off that the workers will be dealing with while in the environment potentially 1000s of dollars.
Obviously I am not all of managements favourite person at the moment, its hard work being the sole occupational safety and health voice trying to get equal manner as their commitment to food safety. And the hazards raised here are common in primary industries similarly no set standards are set for dust/dander/ammonia in animal sheds because there are too many variables to reproduce it.