Regardless of the size and nature of your business, one of the common areas of risk which we have to manage is the use of equipment and chemicals. As with most Health & Safety issues, the level of management and effort required to manage these issues will depend upon what your business does and the types of activity which take place.
For example, a small office environment will perhaps have some computers, printers / toners, general cleaning agents and a small kitchen. The level of risk with regards to equipment and substances in such an area was be considered to be quite low. There would be a need for some management activities but in the main these would be simple, not cost too much and only require a small amount of management input.
Transversely, an engineering environment would have a lot more machinery and use a number of different substances. There is no doubt that the equipment and substances in these types of environments have the potential to cause significant harm and hence must be controlled in a logical manner and via a companywide process.
How?
There are many pieces of legislation which take into account these issues. By clicking on the following links you can learn more about each issue, what you need to do to manage it and find examples of templates which you can use.
