HSE Targeted Enforcement – mild steel welding fume
If your company undertakes steel welding as a part of its UK operations, you need to understand recent reclassification changes and your obligations to manage the risk.
Following the reclassification of mild steel welding fume as a human carcinogen the HSE (UK enforcing body for higher risk workplaces) are now undertaking targeted site visits focusing on this specific risk area.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released scientific evidence that exposure to mild steel welding fume can cause lung cancer and possibly kidney cancer in humans, resulting in mild steel welding fume being reclassified as a human carcinogen by the Workplace Health Expert Committee in 2019.
The HSE is strengthening its enforcement expectation for exposure control for all welding fume including mild and stainless steels, high chrome steels, armour plating and exotic metals.
Some welding fume particles are so small that they can reach the narrowest of airways in the respiratory system. Continuous exposure to welding pollutants may lead to acute or chronic respiratory diseases in all welding processes.
The HSE expects any company to have suitable engineered controls in place as there is no safe exposure limit.
- Make sure exposure to any welding fume released is adequately controlled using engineering controls (typically local exhaust ventilation).
- Make sure suitable controls are provided for all welding activities, irrelevant of duration. This includes welding outdoors.
- Where engineering controls alone cannot control exposure, then adequate and suitable Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE) should be provided to control risk from any residual fume.
- Make sure all engineering controls are correctly used, suitably maintained and are subject to thorough examination and test where required.
- Make sure any RPE is subject to an RPE Programme. An RPE programme encapsulates all the elements of RPE use you need to ensure that your RPE is effective in protecting the wearer.
The recent change in enforcement expectations for control of welding fume exposure should be reflected in the risk assessments and in the current control measures on site.
HSE Inspectors will be discussing the control of exposure to welding fume during any Inspections where they find it occurs with immediate effect.
Need more information? Follow any of the links below, or post your questions to: [email protected]
Health and Safety Bulletins. (n.d.). Retrieved from Health and Safety Executive: https://www.hse.gov.uk/safetybulletins/mild-steel-welding-fume.htm
SHP On-Line. (n.d.). Retrieved from Safety and Health Practitioner: https://www.shponline.co.uk/chemical-hazards/mild-steel-welding-fume-reclassified-as-a-human-carcinogen