“Thanks to SAQ our staff feel confident that we are doing the very best we can to protect them whilst working with chemical products.”

A manufacturer of industrial adhesives, sealants and paints, Stelmax Ltd asked us along to their premises in Suffolk to ensure they were doing the right things to protect their staff from any potential hazards arising from the range of hazardous chemicals used in their production processes. We thoroughly examined the COSHH and risk assessments for control of health and safety regulations and compared them to realtime and specific chemical levels present in different parts of the factory at different times. This provided our client with more effective ways to minimise the potential for unacceptably high levels of a range of these chemicals.

Our recommendations included installing a number of local exhaust ventilation units and using safety handling equipment and protective clothing at specific locations within the factory. It is interesting that the government regulated health and safety offices dealing with the regulation of chemical industry of this kind had no access to the required monitoring equipment, resulting in a generic set of rules and recommendations being applied with no relation to the actual indoor air quality problem.

We have now monitored Stelmax Ltd’s premises bi-monthly for over a year and have observed a 60 per cent reduction in the peak VOC readings measured prior to the implementation of our recommended measures. Stelmax Ltd has not only addressed this important health risk, but has also taken further measures to exceed legislation requirements and achieved a real improvement to their environmental and health and safety policy.