Engineering News by You :: Dry cleaning solvents pose OH&S risk

Senior board member | 2007-12-11 04:02:04

we have taken a lot of this stuff for granted over the years, it's just been there - but we are now starting to find some of the dangers. the history books are full of products like asbestos, pcb's, the list goes on and on

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Joe ()

Newbie | 2007-12-11 04:05:12

it's easy to be wise after the event - I'm sure that no one goes out to deliberately cause injury, at the time, chemists are trying to improve the way things are done and to improve peoples lives

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DesD ()

Newbie | 2007-12-11 04:12:11

I must be giving my age away here, but I remember using trike as a degreaser and I can still remember the smell - I remember that it was banned and replaced with something else - but that was probably just as dangerous - but it's a hard call - I think (and hope) that we have learned a lot along the way (and are still learning)
But at the time, I don't think that there was enough known about the long term effects of these chemicals - Thank goodness we now have the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) tho' some of those can be ambiguous

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Aziz ()

Newbie | 2007-12-11 04:15:24

I still think that there is a lot of funny business going on with chemicals and other things like RF waves, radio transmitter towers and the like - sometimes it's easier to plead ignorance than admit that there may be a problem

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Aziz ()

Newbie | 2007-12-11 04:17:27

It's OK for most of the population, but how do you feel now - if you've worked in the dry cleaning business for a lot of years ?

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Chan ()

Newbie | 2007-12-11 04:22:01

I worked in the chemical industry for a few years and there was a lot known which wasn't generally talked about - we screened and tested all of our shop floor workers (who where liable to be in contact with chemicals or vapors) on a very regular basis and and if the levels in the bloodstream where getting high, we moved them to other jobs. I guess that this is standard practice with most reputable companies

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Anonymous ()

Newbie | 2007-12-11 04:26:56

I'll bet that the shop floor workers in the third world countries don't get regular screening - in fact I'll bet that they don't even get protective safety gear.
And thats one of the reasons these countries can supply cheap products - because they don't have to comply with any safety regulations and they treat their labor as factory fodder

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