Physical hazards

A physical hazard is defined as "A factor within the environment that can harm the
body without necessarily touching it. Vibration and noise are examples of physical
hazards".

Physical hazards include but aren't limited to electricity, radiation, pressure, noise,
heights and vibration amongst many others.

 Abrasive Blasting  High risk work

 Agriculture  Noise
 Cash-in-transit activities  Noise-induced hearing loss
 Construction Work  Overhead and Underground electric
 Demolition Work lines
 Electrical risks  Plant and structures
 Excavation Work  Quad bikes
 Facilities  Road freight transport
 Falling Objects  Sedentary Work
 Flood Recovery  Slips, trips and falls
 Forklift Safety  Smoking
 Hazardous manual tasks  Travel risk
 Heat  Vibration
 Welding
Chemical hazards
Hazardous chemicals in the workplace are substances, mixtures and materials that can
be classified according to their health and physicochemical risks and dangers.

Health hazards include skin irritants, carcinogens or respiratory sensitisers that have an
adverse effect on a worker's health as a result of direct contact with or exposure to the
chemical, usually through inhalation, skin contact or ingestion.

Physicochemical hazards generally result from a substance's physical and chemical

properties, as is the case with flammable, corrosive, oxidising or explosive substances.
  Airborne contaminants
 Asbestos
 Hazardous Chemicals
 Lead Risk Work
 Major Hazard Facilities
 Spray painting and powder coating
 Work requiring Health Monitoring

Biological hazards
Biological hazards are organic substances that pose a threat to the health of humans and
other living organisms. Biological hazards include pathogenic micro-organisms, viruses,
toxins (from biological sources), spores, fungi and bio-active substances.

Biological hazards pose risks for many workers in a wide variety of ways. For example,
workers in health care professions are exposed to biological hazards via contact with
human bodily matter, such as blood, tissues, saliva, mucous, urine and faeces, because
these substances have a high risk of containing viral or bacterial diseases. Likewise,
people who work with live animals or animal products (blood, tissue, milk, eggs) are
exposed to animal diseases and infections, some of which (zoonoses) have the potential
to infect humans (for example, Q-fever, avian flu or Hendra virus) or cause serious allergy
via sensitisation.

Exposure to biological hazards in the work environment can also occur when people are
in contact with laboratory cell cultures, soil, clay and plant materials, organic dusts, food,
as well as rubbish, wastewater and sewerage.

Psychosocial hazards
Psychosocial hazards include but aren’t limited to stress, violence and other workplace
stressors.

Work is generally beneficial to mental health and personal wellbeing. It provides people
with structure and purpose and a sense of identity. It also provides opportunities for
people to develop and use their skills, to form social relationships, and to increase their
feelings of self-worth.

There are circumstances, however, in which work can have adverse consequences for
health and wellbeing. Risks to psychological health at work may arise from organisational
or personal factors, with the major factors being poor design of work and jobs, poor
communication and interpersonal relationships, bullying, occupational violence and
fatigue. Risks to psychological health due to work should be viewed in the same way as
other health and safety risks and a commitment to prevention of work-related stress
should be included in an organisation’s health and safety policies.

 Alcohol in the workplace

 Bullying in the workplace
 Customer aggression
 Driver fatigue
 Remote or isolated work
 Work-related mental stress

Ergonomic hazards
An ergonomic hazard is a physical factor within the environment that harms the
musculoskeletal system. Ergonomic hazards include themes such as repetitive
movement, manual handling, workplace/job/task design, uncomfortable workstation
height and poor body positioning.

Ergonomics is the study of how a workplace, the equipment used there and the work
environment itself can best be designed for comfort, efficiency, safety and productivity.
Often we can improve our levels of comfort and productivity with relatively simple
changes.

Although ergonomics is a broad field, the main areas of concern for workplaces and
employees will often relate to:

 workstations (sitting and standing)

 equipment layout and operation
 computer systems
  noise
 lighting
 thermal comfort

Managing OHS risk in your workplace

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) legislation requires that all forseeable hazards are
identified and the risks arising from these hazards are eliminated or controlled.

Risk management is a legal requirement for all businesses regardless of their size and
basically it involves asking the following questions:

 what hazards exist in the workplace?

 how serious are the hazards?

 what can be done to control these hazards? 

Risk management is a four step process whereby you identify hazards in the workplace, then assess
the risk of those hazards and then implement control measures, which will eliminate or minimise the
risk of injury from the hazards you identified.

Control measures which have been put in place must be reviewed periodically to check that they
actually fix the problem, without creating another one.

Step 1: hazard identification

Hazards can be identified through:

 workplace inspections

 incident reporting

 register of injuries

 consultation with employees

 feedback from employees. 

There are a number of business activities which can involve risk to safety. These can
include: 

 Purchasing: the equipment or chemicals purchased to run your business may

introduce safety issues (e.g. plant and equipment; cleaning agents)

 Work activities: in carrying out work tasks the physical and psychological demands
of the tasks, equipment used, working environment can place employees at risk
(e.g. repetitive movements, length of time spent on the computer, air quality,
materials handling)

  Contractors/casual employees/customers: other workers who come into the

workplace can be at risk or place your employees at risk from the work activities
they conduct (e.g. cleaning agents used by cleaners, electrical contractors, verbal
abuse by customers). 
Step 2: risk assessment
Risk Assessment determines how likely and how serious the effects will be on people in the workplace
being exposed to the hazard. Work out which hazards are most serious and deal with them first. To
assess the risk, you should consider: 

 the type of hazard

 how severely could the hazard injure or cause illness (consequence)

 how likely is this consequence going to happen (likelihood)

 the frequency and duration of exposure

 who it may effect

 capabilities

 skills, experience and age of people

 layout and condition of the working environment. 

Step 3: risk control
Risk Control involves deciding what needs to be done to eliminate or control the risks to health and
safety. Where possible, you should always try to remove or eliminate the problem from the
workplace, for example by using a different process, or changing the way a job is done.

If it is not possible to eliminate the hazard, the Hierarchy of Risk Control must be used to determine
the most effective measures to minimise the risks.

Hierarchy of risk control

1. Design or reorganise to eliminate the hazard from the workplace: try to ensure that hazards are
designed out when new materials, equipment and work systems are being planned for the workplace.

2. Remove or substitute the hazard: where possible remove the hazard or substitute with less
hazardous materials, equipment or substances.

3. Enclose or isolate the hazard: this can be done through the use of barriers, introducing a strict
work area, enclosing a noisy process from a person.

4. MinimiZe through engineering controls: this can be done through the use of machine guards,
effective ventilation systems etc.

5. Minimise the risk by adopting administrative controls: establish appropriate procedures and safe
work practices such as job rotation to reduce exposure time or boredom; timing the work so that
fewer employees are exposed; routine maintenance and housekeeping procedures; training on
hazards and correct work methods.

6. Personal Protective Equipment: provide suitable and properly maintained personal protective
equipment and ensure employees are trained in its proper use (examples include gloves, earplugs
etc.).

If no single control is appropriate, a combination of the above controls needs to be taken to minimise
the risk to the lowest level that is reasonably practicable.

Step 4: review

Periodic reviews of control measures and risk assessments should be conducted to

ensure the control measures implemented are appropriate and effective and the risk
assessments are still valid. This can be achieved through safety audits, regular workplace
inspections, consultation with employees and review of incident investigations. Risk
management should be built into all workplace activities that can give rise to safety
issues.

For further guidance on the risk management process review the recently developed
standard AS/NZ ISO 31000:2009 Risk Management-Principle and guidelines available
from Standards Australia.