What Is The Cost Of A Human Life Worth

Having spent the last 12 years working for the European market leader, designing manufacturing and supplying customers, with equipment for the correct storage of Hazardous, Flammable and Dangerous substances, I ask my self two questions:

What have I learned from this experience? (Read More)

And

What is the most fundamental thing that shocks me most about working in this Industry?

The answer to both questions overlap each other, because they both relate to Cost..

In 12 years of analysing, assisting and giving people advice, on how to look at and tackle DSEAR Risk Assessments, solve their respective storage problems and helping them to protect both the people they employ and our environment….

It is just how cheap we consider human life to be worth in relation to our daily business……

Forget best practice, forget even minimum standard, many people still consider correct methods of chemical storage, to be far too expensive a price to pay, for providing a safe working environment for their employees.

In Europe where standards of chemical storage are much higher than here, it is simply “breaking the law” to store incorrectly and yet why am I also surprised that those countries have the highest levels of general manufacturing productivity – such as Germany - and yet the lowest levels of industrial accident associated with Chemical storage.

I have spend the last three consecutive years, lecturing on the subject of DSEAR to Health and Safety professionals, managers and administrators all over the UK and can honestly say, I am amazed at the lack of knowledge generally associated with the subject of DSEAR…

This leads me clearly to believe that, something is wrong with our current educational policies. 30 years ago, the typical physics and chemistry lesson would include desktop experiments which clearly demonstrated at least the principles of some of the hazards associated with dangerous substances, but many educators tell me that today, this simply is not possible under current Health and Safety guidelines as they perceive them and thus it could be argued that the Executive itself, created the root cause of the problem.

Are our up and coming engineers left only to reading about the hazards, without understanding the actual causes of the problem? Or indeed when compared to Europe, are our current HSE standards either set too low, or is DSEAR and the “Potential of the hazard” simply not considered important enough as to be at the forefront of HSE long term educational policy, particularly at a time when the HSE are loosing such a large amount of its funding and the cost of raising such standards, would be so high.

Contrary to popular belief – when most people think we are already a health and safety crazy nation, the HSE provide a tremendous service to this country helping to protect us all, in our daily business, but like most other Government funded operations they experienced extreme cutbacks, as example in 2011 loosing 85 million of their 330 million pound budget, one should argue that the HSE requires more funding not less.

This naturally resulted in a further loss of available services and in November 2011 we saw an end to their free telephone help and support line. All part of government departments, tightening their belts, to assist in the fight against global recession.

So what is the cost of a human life worth ?

DSEAR sets as a minimum standard, Flammable storage cabinets designed in accordance with BS 476 part 20… offering 30 minute fire protection - Sounds good enough, until you realise that it is a Building Standard, concerned with the spread of flame, only at a test temperature of 750 degrees C..

So what happens to steel at this temperature, it simply glows red… No flame, no inferno, it just gets hot… Now consider more, that the average fire can reach temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees C

The original ACOP 136 that supports DSEAR stated in paragraphs 94, 96 and 104 which details the performance requirements for fire resisting cupboards and bins that, cabinets manufactured to this standard, should be free from Gaps and Joints, thus to prevent the passage of hot flame and gases and yet in a recent recorded test, it was proved that such cabinets fail on this very element after just 2 to 3 minutes and not the 30 minutes that the standard suggests or certainly implies.

Applicable December 2013 the original supporting DSEAR Approved code of practices have been amalgamated into the newly released ACOP-L138

I ask myself, why then in 2004, did British Standards adopt EN 14470-1 as the minimum standard for the Manufacture of Internal Flammable Storage cabinets and yet the HSE still have not adopted this as Minimum standard – was it simply that there is no line of communication between those who enforce regulations and those that help develop them?

What I know today, is that cabinets manufactured to BS-EN 14470-1, provide up to 90 total fire protection, are tested at 1100 degrees C and in the event of a fire, they must automatically close and lock, not allow the internal temperature of the cabinets to exceed 180 degrees C, - which is considered the lowest Auto Ignition temperature of our common base chemicals - such as Ether - and at the same time that all this is  happening, the cabinets using intumescing seals must become air tight, thus to prevent the passage of hot flames and gases and more importantly, exclude the passage of Air, which contains Oxygen and as we all know - without oxygen, you cannot have a fire….

Yes, such cabinets are a little more expensive than the glorified stationery cupboard that masquerades as a Highly Flammable Storage Cabinet, and requires an investment of around £2000 each, but…
What is the Cost of human life worth…?

For those who have been unfortunate too loose a loved one, they know only too well that the cost of human life is priceless… so why in our working environment do we consider it to be so cheap… simple..

“We have little or no emotional connection to the people who would be affected”

Risk Assessments are designed to identify the danger and based on the information they provide, we then define the level of acceptable failure we are prepared to tolerate by putting in place equipment or procedures to a level which are more often than not, based purely on budget and cost, knowing that some where along the line – we are insured….

So consider this :-

You drive a car, it has valid insurance, but you forgot to renew your MOT....
You have an accident, there are injured parties… Are you insured?   

The answer would be No… in addition - you would be facing prosecution and possibly a civil law suite for damages.
Now

Your Insurance advices you to store your hazardous chemicals correctly in accordance with BS-EN 14470 - as an example, …. But you Ignore the advice … a few months later you have an accident / Fire / resulting in the loss of your building… Are you insured?   

Now the chances are No…

Now consider that 2 fire fighters were also killed trying to put out the blaze and as Owner or Managing Director – you are now facing the prosecution under the 2008 revised Health and Safety offences Act, which has new maximum penalties of £20k fines in lower courts for nearly all summary offences, unlimited fines in higher courts
Imprisonment for nearly all offences - up to 12 months in Magistrates Courts and 2 years in the Crown Court.

We have about 200 primary fires each year in this country, most of which will inflict damage in excess of £100,000.

40% of those companies will then become insolvent as result…
Not decrying “Working From Height” or “Stress at Work”, as two of the main subjects being tackled by the HSE as priority concerns, but normally when these two go wrong, injuries and god forbid fatalities are limited to a few.

But when DSEAR goes wrong far more people are generally affected, yes sometimes just a few, but more often than not, a complete workforce may loose employment putting extreme stresses in place on the families of those concerned and regretfully occasionally a whole community can be affected, by pollution of ground water contamination or air pollution from toxic gases released into the atmosphere..

So - What is the Cost of human life worth…?

What do you think?

chemical storage direct
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