Document K6yBm4oMpxJjoK8MLq5n22qrQ

FILE NAME: Owens Illinois (OWILL) DATE: 1937 Nov DOC#: OWILL004 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Magazine Article - Dust Control Through Organized Research DUST CONTROL THROUGH ORGANIZED RESEARCH MANY a small plant owner is in sympathy with the movement to reduce dust, but he does not have the financial resources to plunge into the prob lem. What can he do about it? I should like to call to your attention the problem of the large plant as contrasted with the little fel low in organizing a dust control program. A con crete illustration may give us the picture better than anything else. Let's make up, therefore, a composite of the best parts of several programs now being carried out by several good-sized companies. In point of fact, no one company can be paraded as perfect, but we can imagine that such a faultless organization actually does exist, and we shall label it "Consolidated Cor poration." In 1931, Consolidated Corporation was buying sand from a nearby sand plant. The sand plant was small in size, having about 100 men on its pay roll. All of a sudden, at the depths of the depres sion, the sand operators were faced with silicosis claims presented by former employees, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Alarmed at the catastrophe that had befallen its neighbor, Con solidated Corporation quite naturally wondered how dean its own backyard was, for although it had escaped the "ambulance chasers" the fact re mained that it handled tons and tons of silica sand --a potential hazard. This urge for self-examination was born in the hyal department of Consolidated Corporation, and this is the first important fact to bear in mind. Ait nduilrUt ibertory et Metrepeiiten Life IMurene* Co. Silicosis Unknown Silicosis was just as new to the large company as to the sand company, and everything had to be learned from scratch. First of all, a committee was made up of a member of the legal department, a member of the insurance department, and a mem ber of the executive department This board of strategyw as appropriately labeled "Hygiene Com mittee." The help of the engineering department was so licited in making a study to see if a silica hazard actually did exist. Generous sums were spent on laboratory apparatus, and Public Health Reprint No. 1328 on the impinger was practically, mem orized. The only man who had had microscope ex perience was drafted from another important engi neering survey and put on dust-counting in the company's plants from coast to coast. Dust samples showed that control equipment was needed at certain jobs, and the Hygiene Committee had to hire an engineer to devote full time to these activities. Thus the Committee had a full-time lawyer and a full-time engineer marshalled against the dust men ace. It should be noted that the legal department not only saw the need of dust control, but took the initiative in pushing it. Importane* of Dust Counts Engineering work included the spotting of dust exposures through dust counts. Then as control measures, bins were vented, hoppers were hooded, and conveyor transfer points were enclosed. Ex instituted pre-employment examinations. The task haust systems were installed where needed. A sys of finding satisfactory X-ray machines in some of tem of monthly maintenance reports was set up, the smaller towns was in itself difficult, and some with copies going to the plant manager and the plants had to transport their men over 200 miles general offices. for the X-ray, thus adding to the expense. Periodic With no rule-of-thumb data available to give the check-up examinations on new employees were car proper volumes and air velocities for the exhaust ried out. systems, field tests were made with experimental ''Playing with Dynamite" hoods and a portable exhaust fan. In some in Throughout this period, which we called the first stances, worthwhile information was obtained in phase, there was a feeling of tenseness, of playing this way, but in others, the field tests interfered so with dynamite, for every precaution had to be taker, much with plant operation and took so much of the to stifie any outburst of false personal injury claims time of the already short-handed maintenance de such as had beset some other companies. The situa partments, that the tests were not practical. tion was paradoxical; on the one hand, each plant Respirators had already been furnished years ago of Consolidated Corporation had to be instructed in --and these, incidentally, were as good as the mar the dangers of silica dust so as to be fully aware of ket afforded at that time. what genuine hazard existed: When the Bureau of Mines but on the other hand, mention issued its respirator schedule of the word "silicosis" was made No. 21, Consolidated Corpora in hushed whispers for fear tion adopted approved devices. some less scrupulous person Every man was given two res might say "Here's where 1 can pirators, each marked with his cash in." This difficult situation number so that they could be existed because silicosis at that cleaned on alternate days. A time was not under the Compen man will really wear a respir sation Laws of any State in ator conscientiously when he which Consolidated operated. knows he gets his own back, The legal department worked cleaned every day. You can see that these me chanics of dust control are not novel. To put them into prac tice, however, was a story of another color. It was a story many authors of technical pa pers skip over hurriedly. Dust control work out in Consoli dated's plants was not* so much engineering" as just plain "sell ing." Everyone from the plant manager down to the janitor had iietrt* Mot1 spray gun. to be "sold" on the reasons for keeping down dust. 8rl***l I'uMk- with industrial organizations, la bor groups and insurance com panies, in bringing pressure to bear on State legislatures so that one by one silicosis was brought under (workmen's) compensa tion and taken away from the jury. As each state enacted a compensation law, with its at tendant assurance of fair play, a huge sigh of relief was passed. Not rn p rito r protection. Dust Abatement Permanent Cp until now, the position of the Hygiene Committee was quite irregular. Here First Line of Attack was an engineer attached to the legal department With the expansion of business that followed the and assigned to work that had industrial health as depression, industry blossomed out with new bins, its prime end. Thus, legal, engineering and medical new elevators, new drills, new machine tools, and activities were carried on in one room, but there even whole new plants, and Consolidated 'Corpora was no space to fit this room into the company'. tion was no exception. A rare opportunity was house. From an organization point of view, dust here afforded to design this new equipment and abatement work was a "pain in the neck" when these structures with the thought in mind of mak it came to tying it in logically with some depart ing them dust-free. The help of equipment manu ment of the company. The remedy was found, facturers was enlisted, and the slight extra cost however, when the personnel department of the entailed in the sensible designing of a dust-free tool company took over this work and incorporated it was will invested. No other approach to the prob in health and safety, tood housekeeping medical lem is so fundamental nor so productive as this. service and employee relations program that it was This is a line of attack which should be followed by already carrying on. Dust control work was not everyone purchasing anything front a one-inch merely "lodged" in the personnel department but grinder to a factory building. was permanently built into it and today the com On the medical side of the picture, Consolidated pany's safety program includes not only accident prevention but occupational disease prevention. With the program now in its fifth year, the third era of Consolidated's experience is dawning. What was born as a "pain in the neck," has now grown into a full-fledged interest in occupational disease in general, not merely silicosis. The trend is shown by pre-employment examinations for everyone, and the increasing use of voluntary periodic examina tions. It is reflected in a different type of plant doctor; he is no longer just a bone-setter, but an industrial physician on the lookout for both acci dental and health injuries. It is further reflected by a better understanding of the purpose of physical examinations. Their chief function is to aid the personnel director in placing the individual who has some disability in a job for which he is physi cally suited. Their function is not, of course, to weed out from industry every individual who has a physical disablement. While the actual amount of money that Consoli dated"Corporation has spent on these three phases of its silicosis problem is unknown, it is easy to see that salaries, equipment, consultant's fees, and ex penses of other kinds during the 5-year period have amounted to a very considerable sum. Such a pro gram is too rypensier for a small plant. Although everyone is "in sympathy with the movement," the wherewithal is not always to be found. Kelp for Small Plants There must be some agency that a small plant can turn to. some clearing house that will tell it what it'.*all about. Fortunately, today we can name such agencies. Many are still in swaddling clothes, but the infants are husk}*. First, recognition should be given to the oldtimers who weve well established long before the depression bred the silicosis "racket." The United States Public Health Service, for one, has for years been vitally concerned with industrial health condi tions. Dr. R. R. Sayers' Division of Industrial Hy giene handle* specific problems of industrial com panies with amazing skill and much patience. The Bureau of Mines, likewise, for years has studied dust conditions, especially in the mineral and allied industries. The Director is constantly tackling si>ecific problems that are of general appli cation. Two other leaders through seniority and accom plishment are the Harvard School of Public Health and the Saranac Laboratory. Insurance Participation One of the most fruitful sources of information for the small company is its insurance carrier. In surance companies like the Aetna, American Mu tual. Employers Mutuals. Liberty Mutual. Metro- Rest drilling in building tic-tien wort. Nt Yori City. politan, Travelers and others, have an engineering and medical service that is outstanding. Industrial trade associations, like the American Foundrymen's Association, have done yeoman serv ice in making available material on dust control to their members. The American Society of-Heating and Ventilating Engineers, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Stand ards Association, through committees, have crys tallized the thought of the authorities on partic ular engineering phases. ASA Code Z9 on factors involved in the fundamental design of exhaust sys tems, is a bible for any engineer who delves into this phase of the work. With the b u n t of interest of state legislatures in occupational disease, many states have set up bu reaus of occupational disease for the sen-ice of in dustry. In addition to these, there are at least two developments that are backed by industry itself. One is the Occupational Diseases Research Depart ment of Northwestern University. This unit began to function last November and has a dispensary clinic to which any case claiming occupational dis ease can be referred. An excellent aspect of the plan is that the staff spends half its time in the re search department and half out in the plants mak ing industrial surveys. Its first symposium was held last September. Air Hygiene Foundation The other development is the Air Hygiene Foun dation, of which Harry Metier is managing director, with offices in Pittsburgh. The Foundation is unique because all phases of the hygiene problems are I considered--engineering, medical, and legal. It was incorporated at the end of 1935, aftev a year of preparation, and its initial assignment, which has just drawn to a close, was to gather together the light of this first survey, and with the,sponsoring of ( tads relating to silicosis in all its phases, and to this, the Foundation has taken its second step. evaluate them. The results are three reports: engi neering, medical, and legal. They are of unusual Special Problems Handled merit, and could only have been obtained by the ' Special problems of members are dealt with by pooling of resources and united action in the part the Foundation which is well equipped for of recognized authorities who compose the three this service because of the exhaustwf"^library ( committees. that has been assembled and because of the ability This fact-finding survey showed many chinks in of the members of its technical committees. the structure of silicosis knowledge that needed to Membership in the Foundation is open to any in be filled in by further research. A research program has now been drawn up by the Foundation in the dustrial company for a fee that is scaled according to payroll. "Reprinted from SAFETY ENGINEERING MAGAZINE, November, 1937" < t ( ( t (