Source:íStock / leaf
Work programme "Safe handling of carcinogenic hazardous substances"
Protect health - take active action!
Carcinogenic hazardous substances are widespread in the world of work. Around 50 substances are currently classified as carcinogenic in categories 1A and 1B in accordance with the CLP Regulation. In addition, there is an unquantifiable number of mixtures. It is therefore not surprising that carcinogenic hazardous substances are the main cause of fatal occupational diseases in Germany.
Source: GDA
As part of multi-year focus campaigns by individual federal states, the focus has been on activities involving carcinogenic hazardous substances.
The results of these company inspections revealed considerable deficits in the implementation of the legal requirements for the protection of employees, which have been in place for many years.
In many companies, the following obligations were either insufficiently fulfilled or not fulfilled at all:
- Examination of substitution options for carcinogenic hazardous substances at workplaces,
- Determining the exposure of employees to carcinogenic hazardous substances,
- Compliance with substance-specific occupational exposure limits and assessment standards,
- Implementation of the necessary measures to protect employees,
- keeping an exposure register and ensuring
- ensuring occupational health care.
This revealed a need for action to protect employees from carcinogenic hazardous substances.
These hazardous substances are found particularly in the following sectors:
The content of the 3rd GDA period with a work programme "Safe handling of carcinogenic hazardous substances" was therefore designed to combat occupational cancer in a targeted and effective manner.
The offers for companies
GDA Hazardous Substance Check: The GDA Hazardous Substance Check helps small and medium-sized companies in particular with prevention. Those involved in occupational health and safety can use it to check and evaluate for themselves how well they have carried out the risk assessment for activities involving carcinogenic hazardous substances. The check provides concrete assistance on what needs to be done and enables the necessary obligations and measures to be tackled or their implementation to be improved.
The GDA Hazardous Substance Check can be downloaded as a brochure here: GDA Gefahrstoff-Check
The online version can be found on the Internet at www.gda-gefahrstoff-check.de.
GDA Best Practices
A cross-industry exchange of best practice examples helps to highlight occupational health and safety measures and integrate them into everyday working life in a tried-and-tested manner. The GDA best practice database GDA best practice database brings together these good solutions from company practice as well as practical aids from the GDA organisations on carcinogenic hazardous substances and will in future make these available to companies in a searchable database for their own implementation.