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Archive for the Case Studies Category

Latest Prosecutions of UK Foundries by the HSE

There have been three prosecutions to date this year of UK foundries, the details of which are shared below.  It is important to remember that the press releases from the HSE will never speak of any good actions taken by the businesses but will only refer to

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HSE visits to UK foundries to increase throughout 2023

Following the resulting levels of enforcement issued against UK foundries as a result of their silica campaign visits which ran from October 2022 until present, at the CHASAC (Castings Health and Safety Advisory Committee) meeting in January, the HSE have undertaken a review of the outcomes.  Given

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Small foundry introduces bespoke robotic fettling cell

A small gravity diecasting foundry that has been striving to improve working conditions and improve productivity, has built a bespoke robotic fettling unit. After finding that the available options from the leading providers of automated systems would not meet the specific requirements the foundry were looking for,

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Welding fume question and answer session with the HSE

As part of the record equalling SHIFT forum held in early July 2019, the HSE provided three key people involved in the new work on tackling welding fume to come along and offer delegates an almost unique open question and answer session related directly to the change

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Change in classification for formaldehyde

The EU Parliament has, after a review, adopted a position on formaldehyde as part of the 3rd wave of revisions to the Carcinogen & Mutagens Directive. The effect of this is, as of now formaldehyde is classified as a class 1b carcinogen, presumed to be a human

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HSE Safety alert for welding fume posted on website

There is new scientific evidence from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that exposure to mild steel welding fume can cause lung cancer and possibly kidney cancer in humans. The UK Workplace Health Expert Committee has endorsed the reclassification of mild steel welding fume as

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Changing hardener reduces benzene exposure

As part of a major piece of research undertaken by the HSE in conjunction with several UK foundries, exposure to a number of chemical substances were measured including benzene, which has a current workplace exposure limit (WEL) of 1 part per million in air (1 ppm). In

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A members report on molten metal clothing

After attending the excellent SHAD event at PMT Industries back in October we took the decision to replace all of our caster’s PPE with MARLAN SX that was demonstrated on the day. This decision has been proved a wise one following a recent incident where a ruptured

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