Lead Exposure (OSHA CFR 29 1910.1025)
Sample Safety Program
PLEASE NOTE:
This is a sample policy document that should be reviewed and updated to:
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verify that all of the material included is compliant with current
regulations
include all applicable work areas, processes, and employees
comply with specific business needs
include all equipment and suppliers involved
ensure compatibility with all other company policies
Purpose
The Company has developed this program to educate its employees on the ill effects of working with lead
and to teach them how to avoid overexposure.
ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES
FOR WORKING WITH LEAD BASED PRODUCTS SHOULD BE REFERRED
TO YOUR SUPERVISOR
Insert Contact Information Here
Scope
This plan covers all employees whose work activities may cause them to come in contact with lead.
Employees whose work descriptions or activities cause them to come into contact with lead will receive
training covering the material in this policy.
Compliance Enforcement Policy
This Company has the highest regard for the safety of our employees and for the general public. Our goal
is to ensure a safe and healthy work environment for all employees. Disregard of this safety procedure
can result in serious injury. It is management’s job to identify and control hazards in the workplace, and it
is your job and your responsibility to make sure safety procedures are followed for safe handling of
products containing lead.
The willful non-adherence to the company respirator program will be immediate cause for disciplinary
action, up to and including termination of employment.
Responsibilities
Responsibility
Provide training to employees
Answering employee questions on lead
Control of proper hygiene practices
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Assigned Person(s)
After working with applying and removing babbitt, and grinding knives all employees shall wash
their hands before eating or smoking.
Only trained and approved employees shall be involved with operations containing babbitt.
Employee responsibility to follow the company safe practices and procedures.
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Lead Exposure (OSHA CFR 29 1910.1025)
Sample Safety Program
Route of Entry into the Body
1. Lead can only harm you if it gets into your body and it gets there by being inhaled or ingested. Lead
is not absorbed through your skin unless you have an open wound.
2. When lead is scattered into the air as a dust, fume, or mist, it can be inhaled and absorbed through
your lungs and upper respiratory tract. Inhalation of airborne lead is generally the primary source of
occupational lead absorption.
3. You can also absorb lead through your digestive system if lead gets into your mouth and is
swallowed. If you handle food, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, or make-up, which has lead on them, or
handle them with hands contaminated with lead, this will contribute to ingestion.
How Much Lead Is Too Much?
OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has set up guidelines for acceptable levels of
lead in two different forms: Airborne and Blood Lead.
1. Airborne: The standards set a permissible exposure limit (PEL) of fifty micrograms of lead per cubic
meter of air (50 g/m3), averaged over an 8-hour work-day. This is the highest level of lead in air to
which you may be permissibly exposed over an 8-hour workday. Since it is an 8-hour average, it
permits short exposures above the PEL so long as for each 8-hour workday your average exposure
does not exceed the PEL.
2. Blood Lead: Prevention of adverse health effects for most workers from exposure to lead throughout
a working lifetime requires that worker blood lead (PbB) levels be maintained at or below forty
micrograms per one hundred grams of whole blood (g/100g). The blood lead levels of workers
(both male and female workers) who intend to have children should be maintained below 30 g/100g
to minimize adverse reproductive health effects to the parents and to the developing fetus.
Health Effects of Lead
There are two basic types of exposures to lead. Short term (acute) and long-term (chronic).
1. Short-term (acute) overexposure to lead occurs when large doses are inhaled or ingested over a
short period of time and the results are fatal. The possibility of that happening at this location is very
remote but it illustrates the serious nature of this substance.
2. Long-term (chronic) overexposure to lead occurs when small amounts are inhaled or ingested over
a long period of time with many serious results. Some common symptoms of chronic overexposure
include loss of appetite, metallic taste in the mouth, anxiety, constipation, nausea, pallor, excessive
tiredness, weakness, insomnia, headache, nervous irritability, muscle and joint pain or soreness, fine
tremors, numbness, dizziness, hyperactivity and colic.
The most common overexposure to lead is when it disrupts the blood-forming system, resulting in
decreased hemoglobin (the substance in the blood that carries oxygen to the cells) and ultimately
anemia. Weakness, pallor and fatigability as a result of the decreased oxygen-carrying capacity of the
blood characterize anemia.
Damage to the central nervous system in general and the brain (encephalopathy) in particular is one
of the most severe forms of lead poisoning. The most severe, often fatal form of encephalopathy may
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Lead Exposure (OSHA CFR 29 1910.1025)
Sample Safety Program
be preceded by vomiting, a
feeling of dullness progressing to
drowsiness and stupor, poor
memory, restlessness,
irritability, tremor, and convulsions. There is a tendency for muscular weakness to develop at the
same time. This weakness may progress to paralysis, often observed as a characteristic "wrist drop"
or "foot drop", and is a manifestation of a disease to the nervous system called peripheral
neuropathy.
Chronic overexposure to lead also results in kidney disease with few, if any, symptoms appearing
until extensive and most likely permanent kidney damage has occurred.
Chronic overexposure to lead impairs the reproductive systems of both men and women.
Overexposure to lead may result in decreased sex drive, impotence and sterility in men. Lead can
alter the structure of sperm cells, raising the risk of birth defects. There is evidence of miscarriage
and stillbirth in women whose husbands were exposed to lead or who were exposed to lead
themselves.
Lead Exposure Control Plan
OSHA Standards give us clear guidance on how we must deal with lead and all other hazards in the
workplace:
1st effort
2nd effort
3rd effort
4th effort
is to ELIMINATE the exposure.
is to develop ENGINEERING CONTROLS to control the exposure.
is to develop ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROLS to control the exposure.
is to use PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT to protect the employee from the exposure.
1. ELIMINATION: The babbitt currently used contains far less lead than the babbitt that was used a few
years ago. The new babbitt contains only .47 % lead.
2. ENGINEERING CONTROLS: All of the babbitt work in the future will take place at the new mill where the
melting pot will be located under an exhaust hood.
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All babbitt will be stored under the bench where the melting pot is located.
3. ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROLS: All employees who melt and apply the molten babbitt or handle the
finished product will be trained on all aspects of this program.
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No eating, drinking, smoking, gum chewing or tobacco chewing will be allowed in the saw
filing room.
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Any employee who handles babbitt in any form shall wash his or her hands, with soap and
hot water immediately after finishing the work and before eating, drinking or smoking.
4. PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT: Any employee who melts babbitt or applies the molten babbitt to
the knives will wear gloves, safety glasses and a face shield.
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Any employee who melts and applies molten babbitt to the knives will also wear coveralls,
which will be removed immediately after completing this operation. Those coveralls will be
stored in the area of the babbitt pot when not in use and will be cleaned on a regular basis.
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Any employee who handles the finished knives will wear gloves.
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Lead Exposure (OSHA CFR 29 1910.1025)
Sample Safety Program
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