The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning employers who work with silica-based materials to take correct safety precautions after two employees were left with potentially life-shortening lung diseases.
York-based stonemasons William Anelay Limited, of Murton Way, Osbaldwick, York, today (5 February) pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £6,000 by York Crown Court.
The court heard that two employees, who had been working at William Anelay Limited as stonemasons for many years, fell ill after being exposed to uncontrolled levels of respirable crystalline silica, which is caused primarily by dry stone carving without extraction ventilation or use of protective equipment. The exposure occurred between May 1994 and July 2008.
High levels of airborne silica had been identified 14 years earlier during a monitoring survey, but subsequent measures taken to protect employees were not adequate.
As a result of the exposure both men have been left with long-term lung damage. So severe are their disabilities that one of the men has since been forced to take early retirement and the other man has been unable to return to work as a stonemason.
for more information go to:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2010/coi-yh-04209.htm?ebul=lev/feb-10&cr=01
Vent-Tech Ltd
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment