Participation for understanding: an interactive method

INTRODUCTION: There are many available models that help evaluate the effectiveness of safety and health measures, but many are complex and require input from many departments within an organization. There is a need to develop a more user-friendly model. METHOD: A participative model was developed that involves face-to-face interviewers with workers, maintenance department, purchasing department and health and safety experts. They were asked about costs, efforts, benefits, and effects of gauging the effects of prevention efforts. RESULTS: Cost effectiveness analyses are essential in all cases and can include whatever the end-user requires, whether it is a small or lasting improvement. Having management participate helps validate the data. CONCLUSIONS: Organizations who collaborate with someone with at least some skill in cost-benefit evaluations will find that they will be able to establish policies and procedures from the data. The end result is a calculation that is understood by all involved.     

Quantification of polychlorinated biphenyls in plastic granulates from the recycling of cables - Reference materials and interlaboratory comparison

A procedure for the quantification of the PCB marker congeners 28, 52, 101, 138, 153, 180 in plastic waste form the recycling of cables in the range of content between 0.1 mgkg(-1) and 20 mgkg(-1) was validated. Representative reference materials for laboratory analyses were produced using granulates from different recycling processes. The method development included aspects of grinding, sieving, homogenising as well as the comparison of extraction methods and chromatographic conditions. The validated procedure foresees grinding of the technical sample to an upper particle size limit of 0.50mm followed by extraction with an unpolar solvent such as n-hexane and gas chromatographic determination. LOD and LOQ for individual congeners ranged between 0.01 mgkg(-1) and 0.08 mgkg(-1). Electron capture detection (ECD) and mass selective detection (MS) were equivalent if chromatographic conditions were appropriately selected. The application of MS was advantageous in presence of significant amounts of interfering components which have been found in some cables. Three reference materials containing the marker congeners in the range of 0.1 mgkg(-1)-5 mgkg(-1) were submitted to a final validation intercomparison with 23 selected field laboratories using the developed method. Relative reproducibility standard deviations varied between 15% and 33%.