An Analysis of occupational safety and health hazards in the hot end section of container glass manufacturing industry

Abstract

The uncontrolled occupational health and safety hazards are hidden issue all over the world. Many people die and sacrifice their lives in short terms and long terms as a result of these uncontrolled and unidentified hazards existing in the working environment. The health care sector of countries have to spent billions of money for medical treatments for the occupations illnesses, in the developing countries. In addition, the contribution of victimized people to the economic development process of a country get limited in various ways and their personal lives get disturbed. Accidents caused in industries making partially disabled, fully disabled people, who are considered as dependents in the society making minimum contribution to the economy. The glass industry is known as an industry with high concerns of occupational health and safety conditions and with less studies in finding the long lasting solutions and remedies in remedying the hazardous conditions. In this study, preliminary the Sri Lankan glass manufacturing sector was considered and data collection done. Preliminary in data collection the structured questionnaire was used validated with a questionnaire pilot study with industry experts. In this study, the hot end section was selected in carrying the survey and out of 35 employees; the 32 employees were selected according to the small survey-sampling plan. The demographic data, health and safety hazards according to the criticality, company background of OSH and critical causes for the OSH hazards were collected with interview of employees by the researcher by face-to-face interview. All collected data tabulated and analysed through the excel and RII (Relative Importance Index) was calculated in facilitating the ranking the hazards and the cause. In most of the cases, the hazardous condition had been controlled with PPE applications and engineering controls where as the eliminating and substitution is a challenging initiatives in the glass manufacturing environment. Against the preventive initiatives the controlling of the hazards and exposures are quite unsatisfactory as during the case study the results showed are alarming. This study conducted by emphasizing to develop a better OSH environment in Sri Lankan glass industry.