48th Edition, NOVEMBER 22nd 2013

OBESITY

Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems. People are considered obese when their body mass index (BMI), a measurement obtained by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by the square of the person's height in metres, exceeds 30 kg/m2. Obesity increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. Obesity is most commonly caused by a combination of excessive food energy intake, lack of physical activity, and genetic susceptibility, although a few cases are caused primarily by genes, endocrine disorders, medications or psychiatric illness. Dieting and physical exercise are the mainstays of treatment for obesity. Diet quality can be improved by reducing the consumption of energy-dense foods such as those high in fat and sugars, and by increasing the intake of dietary fiber.

Anti-obesity drugs may be taken to reduce appetite or inhibit fat absorption together with a suitable diet. If diet, exercise and medication are not effective, a gastric balloon may assist with weight loss, or surgery may be performed to reduce stomach volume and/or bowel length, leading to earlier satiation and reduced ability to absorb nutrients from food. Obesity is a leading preventable cause of death worldwide, with increasing prevalence in adults and children, and authorities view it as one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century.
Source: www.wikipedia.com
Fitri Yuliyanti HSE Admin PT.National Utility Helicopters

48th Edition, NOVEMBER 22nd 2013

EMS HELICOPTER FUEL EXHAUSTION

Could texting distraction have led to a series of disastrous mistakes?

AS YOU MAY HAVE HEARD BY NOW, THE NTSB HAS ASKED THE FAA to prohibit the use of portable electronic devices (PED) read smart phones, tablets, etc. for non operational use by crewmembers at their flight deck duty stations while the aircraft is being operated. This would include FAR Part 135 and 91 Subpart K operations. The Safety Board also wants Part 121, 135 and 91 Sub part K operators to incorporate into their initial and recurrent pilot training programs and manuals information on the detrimental effects that distraction due to the nonoperational use of PEDs can have on performance of safety-critical ground and flight operations. The latest series of PED recommendations arises from the Safety Boards investigation into the loss of a Euro copter AS350 B2 helicopter that crashed on Aug. 26, 2011, in Mosby, Mo., killing all on board the pilot, flight nurse, flight paramedic and patient. Air Methods, doing business as Life Net in the Heartland, operated the helicopter. Essentially, the helicopter flew three legs in daylight VFR conditions, ran out of fuel and then crashed at the bottom of a mismanaged autorotation. The Safety Board determined the probable causes were: the pilots failure to confirm that the helicopter had adequate fuel on board to complete the mission before making the first departure, his improper decision to continue the mission and make a second departure after he became aware of a critically low fuel level, and his failure to successfully enter an autorotation when the engine lost power due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing to the accident, said the Safety Board, were (1) the pilots distracted attention due to personal texting during safety-critical ground and flight operations, (2) his degraded performance due to fatigue, (3) the operators lack of a policy requiring that a [company] operational control center specialist be notified of abnormal fuel situations and (4) the lack of practice representative of an actual engine failure at cruise airspeed in the pilots autorotation training in the accident make and model helicopter. While the NTSB has been chasing the PED demon for quite a while, the other identified contributing factors may be more important. Arguably, PEDs can be a distraction; but fatigue, misunderstanding of critical performance factors and inexact training may have more relevancy in the greater scheme of helicopter safety.

Source : Business & Commercial Aviation Magazine Sent by: Capt. O. S. Samson

Fitri Yuliyanti HSE Admin PT.National Utility Helicopters

48th Edition, NOVEMBER 22nd 2013

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF PAPER

The environmental impact of paper is significant, which has led to changes in industry and behavior at both business and personal levels. With the use of modern technology such as the printing press and the highly mechanised harvesting of wood, disposable paper has become a cheap commodity. This has led to a high level of consumption and waste. With the rise in environmental awareness due to the lobbying by environmental organizations and with increased government regulation there is now a trend towards sustainability in the pulp and paper industry. The production and use of paper has a number of adverse effects on the environment which are known collectively as paper pollution. Pulp mills contribute to air, water and land pollution. Discarded paper is a major component of many landfill sites, accounting for about 35 percent by weight of municipal solid waste (before recycling). Even paper recycling can be a source of pollution due to the sludge produced during deinking.

Issue
Deforestation : Deforestation is often seen as a problem in developing countries but also
occurs in the developed world. Woodchipping to contentious environmental issue. produce paper pulp is a

Air pollution : Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are all
emitted during paper manufacturing. Nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide are major contributors of acid rain, whereas CO2 is a greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.

Water pollution : Waste water discharges for a pulp and paper mill contains solids, nutrients
and dissolved organic matter such as lignin. It also contains alcohols, and chelating agents and inorganic materials likechlorates and transition metal compounds.

Waste : Paper waste like other wastes faces the additional hazard of toxic inks, dyes and
polymers that could be potentially carcinogenic when incinerated, or comingled with groundwater via traditional burial methods such as modernlandfills. Paper recycling mitigates this impact, but not the environmental and economic impact of the energy consumed by manufacturing, transporting and burying and or reprocessing paper products.

Wood pulping process.

Fitri Yuliyanti HSE Admin PT.National Utility Helicopters

48th Edition, NOVEMBER 22nd 2013

Chlorine and chlorine-based materials : Chlorine and compounds of chlorine are used in
the bleaching of wood pulp, especially chemical pulps produced by the kraft process or sulfite process. Plants using elemental chlorine produced significant quantities of dioxins. Sulfur,hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide : Sulfur-based compounds are used in both the kraft process and the sulfite process for making wood pulp. Sulfur is generally recovered, with the exception of ammonia-based sulfite processes, but some is released as sulfur dioxide during combustion of black liquor, a byproduct of the kraft process, or "red liquor" from the sulfite process. Non-renewable resource : Clay or calcium carbonate are used as fillers for some papers. Kaolin is the most commonly used clay for coated papers.

Mitigation
Bleaching : The move to non-elemental chlorine for the bleaching process reduced the
emission of the carcinogenic organochlorines. Peracetic acid, ozone andhydrogen peroxide and oxygen are used in bleaching sequences in the pulp industry to produce totally chlorine free (TCF) paper.

Recycling : There are three categories of paper that can be used as feedstocks for making
recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste. Mill broke is paper trimmings and other paper scrap from the manufacture of paper, and is recycled internally in a paper mill. Pre-consumer waste is material that was discarded before it was ready for consumer use. Post-consumer waste is material discarded after consumer use such as old magazines, old telephone directories, and residential mixed paper.

Mechanical pulp mills : Wood pulp produced primarily by grinding wood is known as
"mechanical pulp" and is used mainly for newsprint. These mechanical processes use fewer chemicals than either kraft or sulfite mills. The primary source of pollution from these mills is organic material such as resin acids released from the wood when it is processed. Mechanical wood pulp is "brightened," as opposed to bleached, using less toxic chemicals than are needed for chemical pulps.

Inks
Three main issues with the environmental impact of printing inks is the use of volatile organic compounds, heavy metals and non-renewable oils. Standards for the amount of heavy metals in ink have been set by some regulatory bodies. There is a trend toward using vegetable oils rather than petroleum oils in recent years due to a demand for better sustainability. Deinking recycled paper pulp results in a waste slurry which may go to landfill. De-inking at Cross Pointe's Miami, Ohio mill in the United States results in sludge weighing 22% of the weight of wastepaper recycled.

Source: www.wikipedia.com
Fitri Yuliyanti HSE Admin PT.National Utility Helicopters