BEST CONSTRUCTION SITE SAFETY

CONSTRUCTION SAFETY

Construction, by its very nature, presents numerous hazards for operatives in handling heavy weights, placing large quantities of concrete, working at heights and operating in all weather conditions. Everybody is understandably distressed when a fellow employee is killed or disabled.

Accident do not happen they are caused. Most accidents can be prevented. Various measures are available to improve job-site safety in construction. Several of most important measure can be adopted before the construction is undertaken. Some of these are design, choice of technology, and education. Prequalification of contractors and subcontractors with regards to safety is another important avenue for safety improvement.

Types of likely hazards/accidents during construction include: falling of persons from height; falling of materials from height; exposure to heat/cold; exposure to radiation; exposure to or contact with potential harmful substances; contact with electric current; overexertion; injury due to projected reinforcement bars; striking against objects; accident due to lifting equipment, loose scaffolding, machinery, tunneling, poison, gassing, toxic material, impact noise, and excavators. Diseases caused during construction include: deafness due to noise impact, bone fracture, mental stress diseases due to vibration, muscle strain, skin diseases, cancer, tuberculosis and injury due to welding.

CAUSES OF SAFETY AND HEALTH PROBLEMS

There are many special features of construction industry which are responsible for causing problem to safety and health.

1. Environment: The major environmental health problems encountered in construction consists of noise, dust, radiation, toxic materials, heat and cold.
2. Supervision: The worker in construction field is by nature, extremely versatile and often considers that he has an ability to improvise - this in itself is danger, as makeshift arrangements, such as planks for access, a wire to activate, a switch or wedge to retain a latch, can present a real danger.
3. Discontinuity in regular employment: In India, most of the workers are from rural background and return home for work at harvest time. After returning from home, many workers forget many of the hazards of the job and safe working methods.
4. Rapid change in character of work: Every worker after certain period becomes acquainted with safety methods of operation for particular nature of job. Now, if the worker is shifted from the job, he has to make himself familiar with the safe working procedure for the new job.
5. Non-availability of facilities: Certain facilities like helmet, hand gloves, safety belt, gumboots, goggles are essential for specific jobs. Working without using these items can lead to accidents.

SAFETY PROGRAM

An effective safety program must instill a sense of safety consciousness in every employee. Some of the major elements of safety programs are:

1. Educating the top and middle-management in the fundamentals of safety and effective accident prevention program.
2. A formal training program for all new employee.
3. A formal supervisory safety training program for all supervisors.
4. A program of regular visits by safety inspector to review and control job hazards.
5. Periodic safety meeting conducted by the supervisors relating to topics such as how to prevent accidents, accident causes.
6. Periodic refresher training for each worker.
7. Provision of additional personnel protective equipment, first-aid equipment and trained emergency personnel.
8. Organisation of safety policy and to comply with local laws and regulations, if any.
9. Circulate to all employees a statement of their own health a and safety objective and organisation and management to follow strictly.
10. Holding an experienced and competent supervisor in-charge of the work who would stock the necessary protective equipment, fire extinguishing equipment, first-aid kit etc. 
11. Not permitting the workers engaged on job involving handling of hot bitumen without wearing the needed protective covering such as boots and gloves, preferably of rubber, goggles or helmet.
12. Arranging the sufficient stock of clean dry sand or loose earth at the work site to cope with any adverse condition, when heating and handling of hot bituminous materials.

SAFETY PROCEDURES

Every worker in the construction industry must remember that 'PRECAUTION IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN CURE'. The list of major safety precautions should be helpful as a general guide.

1. General: Good housekeeping on a construction site is both a safety measure and an indicator of good project supervision.
2. Protective equipment and site hazards: Hard hats and gloves are standard requirements for steel erection. Eye protection must be provided for workers engaged in welding, cutting and chipping operations. Structural members should be checked to ensure that they are free of hazards such as dirt, oil, loose debris, ice and wet point before hoisted into place.
3. Equipment operations: Extreme caution should be exercised when operating near high voltage line, the operator should attempt to move the equipment enough to break contact. If unsuccessful, the operator should remain on the equipment until the line can be de-energized.
4. Construction plant: Aggregate bins and batching plants should be emptied before performing major repairs.
5. Excavation: The sides of excavation must be shored or sloped to the angle of repose to prevent cave-ins. Operation of equipment near the top edge of an excavation should be avoided.
6. Construction of structures: Provide guard, safety lines, safety belts, and/or safety nets for workers on scaffolds or steel work. Ensure that temporary structures are properly designed, constructed and braced.
7. Effective communication: While working at the deep shaft, the maintenance of an efficient communication system between the people working in the shaft and those at the top is important to ensure the safe control of the lowering and lifting of skips or other conveyed loads.
8. Tunneling: Appropriate rescue and first-aid equipment including suitable breathing apparatus should be kept at ground level ready for immediate use near the access shaft. In the event of someone in the working being overcome by dangerous atmosphere entry for rescue must only be made by people wearing suitable breathing apparatus.
9. Work over water: All people working over water should be provided with and encouraged to wear a brightly-coloured life jacket, or other buoyancy aid capable of bringing a man to the surface, even if unconscious, in a face-up position. It should have self-igniting lights to facilitate easy identification in poor visibility.
10. Demolition: Demolition is one of the high-risk activities of construction industry with fatal and major injury accident. For any demolition operation to be undertaken safely and efficiently, a careful preliminary investigation of the structure is necessary. The results of each step in the demolition process must be accurately forecast.

SAFETY POLICIES
A health and safety statement should contain the following basic elements:

1. It is the duty of the employer legally, to provide safe and healthy working conditions for his employees.
2. The organisation will conduct its work in such a manner that the health and safety of others, beside that of its employees is not adversely affected.
3. That an organisation and chain of authority in matters of safety has been set-up.
4. That safety information instructions and training will be provided for all employees and when necessary.
5. That the employer will encourage the work of a safety committee and with safety representatives.

TYPICAL SAFETY POLICY STATEMENTS

Health and safety statements for organisations involved with construction have many similarities. Some employers choose to display the statement on notice board while others include it in a safety handbook. A typical local policy statement should include:

• Responsibility: The names of the staff responsible together with their locations and delegated duties.
• Representatives: Arrangements for committee's trade union consultation on safety matters.
• Induction: Safety instructions for new employees.
• Training: Arrangement for further training.
• Plant: Maintenance and operator training.
• Accident reporting: Arrangement for reporting and recording personal injuries.
• Welfare: Assistance with staff welfare problems.
• First-aid: Provision of first-aid equipment and first-aid providers.
• Safety advisory service: How to seek advice.

SAFETY AND RELIABILITY PROGRAM
While no civil engineering or building project can be entirely risk free, either during construction or in its completed form, there are ways in which the risks can be reduced to an acceptable level - even though that level may be hard to define. In construction, the type of activity is seldom repeated with an identical set of circumstances and it is, therefore, practically impossible to follow the routine system of working. The risk can never be eradicated that it is possible in most cases to quantify the probability of failure so that decisions can be taken on the financial implications of reducing it. The technique used for safety and reliability analysis are not solely concerned with the prevention of accidents. They also have an important economic value, for they can be utilized to evaluate the financial consequences of equipment failure and disrupted production.

INFORMATION SYSTEM
Information is the means of communicating the art of good safety practice to all employees. It maybe either advisory or mandatory.

1. Information Prepared in House: The primary medium for making safety information available should be in the form of handbooks. Standing instruction, practice notes and advisory notes prepared for or by the employer safety adviser for distribution to those for whom it is intended.
2. Safety Handbook: It is necessary to produce an employee safety handbook and given to employee when they are first appointed in order to ensure that all staff and operatives whether employed by contractor, client or professional firms are aware of hazardous nature of the work.
3. Posters: Some of the subjects are more suited for display on the notice boards from circulation to individual staff members which include local arrangements for health and safety, including the names of the safety representatives, first-aid officers and the procedures for reporting accidents.
4. Publication: Some publications specializing in safety and health are suitable for wide circulation throughout the staff membership, while others are suitable for reference.
5. Movies: Movies and video show relating to safety in construction site should be arranged particularly where most of the worker are not trained.
6. Training: The general duty of the employer to provide such instruction and training as is necessary to ensure the health and safety at work of his employees and presumably, other who may be affected by their acts or omissions. To satisfy this general duty, employers in the construction sector find it necessary to provide training at several levels from a basic introduction to health and safety for everyone in their employment to safety training courses for management staff. Moreover, safety should form a part of all training of construction operatives. The training in first-aid, fire prevention and action in the event of a fire would be advantageous.

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR SAFE CONSTRUCTION
It is necessary for every employer to recognize the hazards and manage his operations to eliminate them, in order to satisfy his legal duties to provide safety of the employees and others from risk arising out of work activities. This may be effective by the completion of a safety appraisal of every site, followed by safety audits from time to time during construction.

1. Safety appraisal: Site manager should be responsible for setting up safety appraisal when the contract has been awarded.
2. Safety audits: On sites there is pressure to ignore safety procedure to save time or to improve productivity bonus payments. It is necessary for safety audits to be carried out at intervals by the employer's safety adviser or supervisor. 
3. Permit to work: The permit to work is a document which describes the work to be done and the precautions to be taken so that the errors omissions and misunderstanding that causes accident are minimized, even eliminated.
4. Competent person: Tusk such as understanding hazardous inspections, issuing permits to work or requiring exposure to a high level of foreseeable risk at frequent intervals should be undertaken by specially trained engineers who appreciate the risk involved.
5. Quality assurance in construction: In order to assume reliability of public safety by structured control of all stages of design and production, quality assurance is necessary.

PROTECTIVE AND SAFETY EQUIPMENT
The use of protective equipment will depend on the level and type of risk. Protective equipment should be designed in such a way to suit climatic conditions so that they do not cause discomfort. Everything possible should be done to awaken and maintain the interest of employees in the use of these equipment. Employer should have a legal duty to provide protective clothing and equipment free of charge for certain operations. Employees also have a duty to preserve their own health and safety and it is everyone's interest that they should be adequately clothed.

ACCIDENTS AND FIRST-AID
Every accident must first be notified to enforcing authority by the quickest practicable means. The cause of accident should be investigated to ascertain the cases and to determine what specific remedies are required to avoid a recurrence. It is better that all accidents are investigated as quickly as possible. The longer the delay the less likely that facts be ascertained.

• Site arrangements for health, safety and welfare: For safety reason, a site telephone should be installed at the earliest.
• First-aid facilities: It is the duty of the employer to inform employees of the arrangements that have been made for rendering first-aid, including the location of equipment, facilities and personnel. Irrespective of the number of employees there must be at least one first-aid in any construction site or work location.
• Budget allocation for safety: The accident rate in the construction industry is such that most of the person working in this field will be involved with an accident at some time in their career. It is necessary to make allocation in the budget for the purchase and maintenance of protective and safety equipment, treatment of injuries and for rehabilitation for injured staff.

SAFETY LACUNAE
There are number of safety lacunae prevailing which needs to improve to minimize health hazards in construction site.

1. Non-availability of ambulance/vehicle meant for accident purpose:  Normally many vehicles are seen at construction site but the same are not available when required during some accidents because no vehicle is earmarked which can always be available during accidents.
2. Ignorance about ow safety: Most of the workers involved in construction sector are illiterate and they are not able to think about their safety without any training. Many a times even qualified engineers also do not take the safety precautions.
3. Insufficient safety equipment: Very few construction sites are fully equipped with all the required safety equipment.
4. Over working: The workers engaged in construction industry are sometimes not aware of their wages and how much time in a day they are to work. Often, they over work (more than the capacity) which also leads to accidents.
5. Improper communication system: Most of the construction sites are not having walkie-talkie system and sites due to heavy noise, workers are not able to communicate properly which also sometimes leads to accident.
6. Lack of training facility for safety: Very few sites are employing safety personnel responsible for imparting training to workers besides other materials like posters, films, safety handbooks, videos etc. are also not available.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Because of the inherently hazardous nature of the construction activity, it may never be possible to completely prevent accidents and serious injury in this field. The stress should be on safety, accidents prevention and to try to reduce the number of accidents. Safety is not the responsibility of one person. Safety is everybody's job. All member of the construction field must work together to prevent accidents. In construction site risk can be reduced to an acceptable level and projects can be reasonably safe by proper planning adapting procedures and providing facilities as described. Visual display through video/films would be most effective way for training and to educate workers.

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Green Environment

Hi, I’m Gobinda Burman (Green Environment). More than 27 years in the field of Building Construction industry, I’ve completed many high-rise building projects successfully. I have got the opportunity to learn and solve the critical practical problems related to building construction. I love to share my knowledge with those people who wants to build their own home and the budding civil engineers willing to build their career in this field..

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