Occupational Health and Safety in Japan and Pakistan

Abdul Wadood
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Institute of Space Technology, Near
Rawat Toll Plaza, Islamabad
[email protected]; [email protected]
Phone: +92-51-907-5584; +92-331-9575370

Keywords: Health and safety; MSDS; PPEs, Safety Controls; Lab Management

Abstract

Health and safety during work/research work/experimentation is very important. In many conferences,
this important topic is being ignored and there are in general no such discussions in many materials
conferences on this important topic. There are three important safety controls for any general/lab work;
Engineering Controls, Administrative Controls and Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs). These
controls are briefly analyzed in this paper. Author has more than five year’s materials/metallurgy lab
safety work experience of Japan and about fifteen years materials/metallurgy labs safety work
experience of Pakistan. In this paper, author’s Japan and Pakistan experience of lab work and lab
management from Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) point of view is presented. Author’s
contribution in the field of Occupational Health and Safety is presented. PPEs and fire protection is also
presented. Importance of Materials Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) is also presented.

1. Introduction

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is related to improve the work-place conditions for workers and
co-workers, family members, customers and other stakeholders for the betterment of both the
employees and employer. OHS is beneficial both for employees as well as for employer. Risk related to
health and safety of workers weakens the employees work performance [1]. Figure 1 shows that the
productivity, output and profit of any organization are related to occupational health and safety
management system of that organization. Occupational safety and health (OSH) is also referred
as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or workplace health and safety (WHS) is
a multidisciplinary field concerned with the health, safety and welfare of the workers. OHS is related to
recognizing, evaluating and controlling the hazards related to work. Australia has special focus on the
development and publication of the occupational health and safety knowledge, university-level
accreditation of OHS professional education and certification of OHS professionals [2]. Ref. [3] is
related to OHS innovation in Spain.
 Figure 2: Relationship between
Figure 1: Productivity, output and profit of any number of accidents and profit of any
organization are inter-related with the occupational organization.
health and safety practices of that organization.

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) focuses primarily on protecting employees in the workplace
from accidents, injuries, and exposure to harmful substances. Health and safety of workers during their
job work is very important. Satisfaction of employees affects the profit and prosperity of any
organization. Incidents and accidents of employees affect the resources of any organization. Figure 2
shows the effects of accidents on the profit of any organization. Hazard is potential to cause harm and
risk is the likelihood of harm due to that hazard.

There is very nice book on the ‘fundamental Principles of Occupational Health and Safety by B.O. Alli
[4]. It is the responsibility of employer to ensure that employees and workers take safety steps to reduce
the risk of incidents and maintain a safe working environment. Safety personals work for the total
workers heath. Book on ‘Total Workers Health’ provides key strategies for challenging demands of
twenty first century workers [5]. Total Workers Health ® is registered trademark of the US department
of Health and Human Services. Occupational health and safety has given much importance in advance
countries. For this reason, there are less number of safety related incidents in these countries. The
impact of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970 has been significant and is implemented in
many countries with many international firms using Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) standards as a technical base. Although OHS regulations are developed and regulated by
the federal government agency of US, each US state can opt to develop and enforce its own OSHA
programs. Safety management of any organization is related to risk assessment, incident tracking,
work place inspection, and employee’s training, implementing safety standards [6].

2. Hierarchy of Control Measures [7-8]

2.1 Elimination
The most important control method is the elimination or the removal of the hazardous material. By
eliminating the hazard, the related risk will also be eliminated. It is the responsibility of safety
management team to eliminate the safety hazard if possible.

2.2 Substitution
If complete elimination of hazard is not possible, then we have to think about the substitution of most
hazard material with less hazard e.g. using solutions instead of using dry powders where the possibility
of inhaling powder particle is more than the solution of that powders.

2.3 Engineering Controls

Engineering controls are those controls that are used to protect workers by removing hazardous
conditions or they can be done by placing the barrier between the hazard and the worker. Engineering
control examples are fume hood, exhaust ventilation, provision of showers and eye wash stations in the
work station or in the labs.
In the hierarchy of control measures, engineering controls are preferred over administrative controls
and personal protective equipments (PPEs). Engineering controls should be used in the design of
building/labs. Provision of emergency stop switch in moving machine parts is another example of
engineering controls. Provision and management of engineering controls is the responsibility of the top
management of any organization.

2.4 Administrative Controls

Administration of any organization is responsible for the designing and implementation of
administrative controls. Administration of any organization should be well aware about the
administrative control for the health and safety of its workers. Administrative controls are related to the
timing of work, rules, regulations and policies, standards and operating procedures, rules of house-
keeping, waste management, training, equipment maintenance and personal hygiene conditions.
2.5 Personal Protective Equipments [9-10]
Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) are the equipments worn by individuals to reduce exposure of
worker with chemicals, noise etc. Personal protective equipments (PPEs) are at last number in the
hierarchy of control measures. Author has experience of asking question to his students, ‘what is the
most important control method in safety point of view’, and many students used to reply that PPEs
are at number one priority. PPEs will protect us during any accident however all other above
mentioned control methods will reduce the probability of occurrence of any safety related accident.
As elimination, substitution, engineering and administrative controls protect us from the occurrence
of incidents and accidents, that is why, these are at higher priority level as compared to PPEs that
only protect us during incidents and accidents.

Different safety control measures and their effectiveness is shown in Figure 3. Upper side of triangle
that is more effective shows the increasing effectiveness and sustainability where the role of
employer and top management of any organization is most important and the lower edge of triangle
shows the increasing participation and where more supervision is required.

Figure 3: Safety control measures and their effects.

3. Lab Safety [11, 15]

Lab safety is very important. In many countries, signed lab safety contract is necessary to participate
in the lab activities. Many students coming from different backgrounds are coming to labs for their
research work. Hierarchy of lab safety is the same as for any other organization e.g. elim ination,
substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls and PPEs. Students are not well-trained as
compared to workers and in many cases, they do not know much about lab safety. Training of
students before the use of lab is necessary.
 3.1 Safety in Japan [12-14]
In Japan, there is term used, ‘あんぜん だいいち (Anzen dai-ichi) that means safety first. Japanese
are very much careful about the occupational health and safety. After joining PhD program of Tokyo
Institute of Technology (TITECH), author was not allowed to start lab work without attending safety
lectures. There were health and safety, emergency/first aid and fire protection seminar for all new
students and students must have to attend that seminar otherwise he or she could not join TITECH
lab work. In the start of PhD program, due to language barrier, author could not get proper
information about the safety lecture date and timing and so author missed that important lecture.
Then author’s PhD supervisor has re-arranged this lecture only for author as without this lecture,
author was not able to start PhD research work. Hosoda lab, TITECH Japan has posted special
safety instructions for the use of rolling mill [15].

Another area is waste management of Japan. There are well defined waste management procedures
for house hold waste as well as for industrial and lab waste. For house hold waste, Japan has divided
this waste into four major categories (a) Combustible waste, もえる ごみ, (b) Non-combustible
waste, 燃えないゴミ(c) Re-cycling, リサイクル, (d) Over-size. Recycling process in Japan is based
on the Japanese Container and Packaging Recycling Law. There are fixed days and timings for the
collection of different types of waste in Japan. Whenever someone will hire new apartments, he/she
will also be provided the full year calendar for the collection of different types of waste. There are
special yellow color bags for the waste disposal. If some-one will not use these bags for waste, then
waste management persons will not pick up his/her house-hold waste. Cost of these waste designated
bags is little higher than other bags. Once author’s family during stay in Japan (2012-2014), put the
home waste in ordinary plastic bags then the waste management persons did not pick up those bags.
There are also designated places to put waste in each building. One cannot find waste in the streets or in
the parks or any other public place. Japanese also use to clean their labs, offices, homes and streets as
well at the end of each year and they use to remove all the un-wanted stuff from their homes in the last
ten days of December each year. Figure 4 shows different types of waste baskets available at designated
locations outside the buildings in Japan. In the author’s PhD lab, Hosoda-Inamura lab, TITECH Japan
(2009-2012), there was weekly lab cleaning on every Wednesday, 1pm-1:30pm. All the Japanese
and foreign students of our lab and even our teachers used to take part in this activity.

Every student has to download the materials safety data sheet (MSDS) of that particular chemical
that he/she would use. Dedicated Japanese teacher was used to ask few questions and then he used to
allow students to perform experiments in the labs. There were also designated places for smoking
and one cannot smoke in other public places. Japanese people follow the rules and regulations, so
everyone shows his responsible attitude towards his/her responsibilities.
 Figure 4: Waste baskets for the collection of waste in Japan
(L to R): (1) Recycle books (2) Non-combustible waste (3) Combustible waste
(4) Glass bottles (5) Food/drinks cans

3.2 Health and Safety in Pakistan [16-17]

Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) has special emphasis on the lab safety in all the Engineering
universities of Pakistan. Course related to Occupational health and safety are also now being offered in
about all the engineering Universities e.g. NUST, GIKI, IST etc. of Pakistan. There are health and
safety teams in all the universities of Pakistan. Although PEC and Universities are taking steps to
improve the health and safety facilities but the response of students in this regards is still not very
encouraging.
No data about the occupational health and safety in Pakistan is available as most accidents in Pakistan
are not reported to the Labour department [18]. There are cases where students are working in the labs
without proper wearing PPEs. Universities administration and faculty should take serious
administrative actions for the implementation of health and safety rules and regulations in the
Universities. When author was the lab engineer in GIKI (2000-2008), students used to leave the lab
equipments/glass beakers without cleaning or putting them in their proper place after lab experiment.
Author used to clean the lab after experimentation as there was no such designated lab attendant.
3.2.1 Lab Safety in IST [19]
Institute of Space Technology (IST) has special emphasis on the employees and students health and
safety. IST does not allow unsafe activities in its premises. IST has special operating procedure (SOP),
IST-Safety-SOP-01/01 implemented from April 22, 2011. Institute of Space Technology has ambulance
service. Figure 5 shows the ambulance service of IST that is equipped with all the modern emergency
equipments available in this ambulance.
 Figure 5: IST Ambulance Service, 24 hours available.

Figure 6: Two days workshop on Occupational

Health and Safety in IST.

IST also has first aid medical facility room. Author is regularly arranging workshops on ‘Occupational
Health and Safety’ where participants from all over Pakistan used to participate in these workshops.
Figure 6 shows one such picture of author alongside the workshop banner. Speakers from 1122
emergency service of Pakistan [20], Pakistan safety council [21] are also invited speakers for these
workshops.
IST has psychiatrist to resolve the psychological issues of students and such issues are also one source
of lab accidents. IST also has FM-200 fire suppression system. In current covid situation, employees
and students cannot enter IST premises without wearing face mask and vaccination certificate is must
to enter its premises. Students who were found without wearing face mask have been fined.
 Figure 7: Firefighting facilities available in IST [18].

Safety Department of IST is responsible to develop and maintain a safe environment for its students
and employees. Safety department of IST maintains strong, professional relationships with all stake
holders to ensure continuous collaboration on emergency planning efforts and familiarity with our
campus in the event of an emergency. IST buildings are also equipped with fire extinguishers, Water
Hydrants. Some areas e.g. data center, IT department are equipped with latest firefighting (FM-200)
system. Firefighting facilities available in IST are shown in Figures 7 [18]. Highly trained firefighting
team is also available in IST. Fire brigade is also available to fight against large fire. Emergency exits
are present in all buildings of IST. Figure 8 shows the emergency exit available in the IST hostels.

Figure 8: Emergency exist available in the IST hostel [18].

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Space Technology (IST) has recently
started one credit hour ‘Health, Safety and Environment’ course in the first semester of our BS students
and author is the pioneer teacher of this course. Occupational health and safety in general with special
emphasis on lab safety, emergency and first aid, fire protection and waste management are covered in
this course. Author is also regularly conducting workshop on ‘Occupational Health and Safety’ and
many participants from different industries and universities have benefited from this course. Speakers
from 1122 emergency service of Pakistan, Pakistan Safety Council and fire brigade experts of
SUPARCO are being invited in these workshops. Author is also the Safety Incharge of his Department
safety team. Emergency numbers, exit roots are displayed in the labs. Fire extinguishers and first aid
boxes are present in each and every lab. Emergency showers and eye wash stations are also available in
each lab. Lab work permit forms are available in each lab and student has to get permission after
reading relevant Materials Safety Data Sheet and before using lab activities where the chance of safety
related lab incidents is high. Author has OHS and fire safety certification from Directorate of Workers
Education Islamabad Pakistan.
Conclusions
1. Hierarchy of Occupational health and safety is analyzed.
2. Occupational health and safety especially lab safety in Japan is discussed
3. Author’s experience of lab safety during his stay in Japan is discussed.
4. Occupational health and safety conditions in Pakistan and lab safety are analyzed in this paper.

Acknowledgements
Author is thankful to Prof. Dr. Hideki Hosoda of Tokyo Institute of Technology (TITECH) Japan, Dr.
Yamabe-Mitarai of high temperature materials unit, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)
Tsukuba Japan and Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Qazi, Head of Department (HOD), Department of Materials
Science and Engineering (MS&E) Institute of Space Technology for guidance and support.

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