Safety Tidbit #2.33 - Housekeeping

Safety Tidbit 2.33 – Housekeeping

Reference: OSHA Walking-Working Surfaces

My home office is my inspiration for this week’s Safety Tidbit. If you pan across my home office, you see piles of papers and books for various research projects on this topic or that. I have sampling equipment plugged into the walls and a computer, iPad, phone, etc. And that doesn’t include the whole other room with other sampling equipment that I have stored as excess for the department. And this is just my home office where there is no one else here but me.

As I looked around, I reflected on the worksites I have visited over the years, thinking why don’t they keep their workplaces tidier? Shoot, I can’t even keep my home office neat. How many accidents or near-miss incidents happen because the workplace is in disarray and there is “stuff” laying all around? OSHA’s revised Walking-Working Surfaces Standard (November 2016) specifies that the employer must keep all places of employment, passageways, storerooms, service rooms, and walking-working surfaces clean, orderly, and in sanitary condition [1910.22(a)(1)].

Specifically, the employer is to ensure the working surface:

•       is clean and dry [1910.22(a)(2)]

•       is maintained free of hazards such as sharp or protruding objects, loose boards, corrosion, leaks, spills, snow, and ice [1910.22(a)(3)]

•       can support the maximum intended load for that surface [1910.22(b)].

Additionally, the employer must regularly and as necessary inspect the walking-working surfaces to ensure they are maintained in a safe condition [1910.22(d)(1)]. And obviously, any hazardous conditions on walking-working surfaces must be corrected or repaired before an employee uses it again. Furthermore, if you cannot make the correction or repair immediately, the hazard must be guarded to prevent employees from using the walking-working surface until the hazard is corrected or fixed [1910.22(d)(2)].

I believe this standard may become my new best friend when I am out and about. If my clients just clean up their workplaces they would get rid of a lot of additional hazards (e.g., hazardous materials that have been around for years).

Hope this was helpful and thanks for reading my Safety Tidbits ~ Bryan