The Breathe Safe Campaign is seeking to raise awareness across the engineering sector on the potentially serious health effects of exposure to welding fume and they have asked Scottish Engineering to share information on this critical issue with our members.
There are estimated to be up to 80,000 welders in the UK, and every day these workers come into contact with welding fume.
Whether it is a full-time occupation, or just part of a job function, it has been shown that welding fume can be harmful to health, and just before lockdown the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), classified welding fume, including fume from mild steel welding, as a carcinogen and revised its guidance for workers’ protection.
All businesses undertaking welding activities should ensure effective engineering controls are provided and correctly used to control fume arising from these activities.
Where engineering controls are not adequate to control all fume exposure, adequate and suitable respiratory protective equipment (RPE) is also required to control risk from the residual fume.
Please see a message for employers from Breathe Safe in the short video here:
Visit the Breathe Safe website to learn more. Breathe Safe – Welding fume can be fatal. (breathesafeuk.org)
