Enterprises, independent assessment for the risk level of chemicals

KOSHA provides 4 steps assessment program for evaluating the risk level of dangerous and harmful chemicals

8^th March,

KOSHA provides assessment program which helps enterprises evaluate chemical substances used in the work places on their own.

KOSHA(President : Baek, Hun-ki) distributes CHARM* to enterprises so that they could estimate the chemical substance’s risks by themselves.

*CHARM: Chemical Hazard Risk Management

The program was developed by KOSHA to protect workers from chemical substances and to improve working environment. One of the features of the program is help enterprises to assess the risk easily with existing information on the risky materials and computed result of working environment’s hazards

With the input of risk information and exposure level, the assessment program can be categorized by four stages: Minor, Major, Serious and Unacceptable risks.

According to the program, the first level, Minor Risks requires the enterprise to conduct safety and health training on a regular base. The second level, Major Risks, recommends the worksites to improve efficiency of ventilation facilities. When the company is diagnosed with the Serious Risks, it has to set up plans to advance working environment. The Unacceptable Risks, finally, encourages businesses to cease the work immediately or have experts conduct a comprehensive working environment assessment.

Enterprises that are not able to compute working environment, can utilize this program, based on the amount of daily usage of chemical substance, information on emission of dust or gas and MSDS(Material Safety Data Sheet) that the working place has.

The program can be downloaded on the ‘hot issue’ corner on the website of KOSHA(www.kosha.or.kr) and if you have any questions, contact +82-32-5100-724.

Meanwhile, 95 cases of accidents were reported due to chemical substance and 32 cases among them were fatal. Around 100 cases of accident occurred for recent three years on average because of chemical substances.

* Occupational accident cases due to chemicals for the recent three years

The Director(Mr. Jeong, Mu Su) of Occupational Health Department said “there are some 40,000 types of chemical substances domestically used and the CHARM would serve as an opportunity for enterprises to evaluate the risk level of the chemical substances.” , adding that companies could come up with more effective counter measures to protect workers’ health by using this program.