Document gb0aE63b2nVq64KbJdeJb9oe9

American Academy of Political and Social Science Safety in the Chemical Industry Author(s): L. A. de Blois Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 123, Industrial Safety (Jan., 1926), pp. 127-131 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1015463 Accessed: 21/10/2009 13:10 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sage. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. 1 Sage Publications, Inc. and American Academy ofPolitical and Social Science are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Annals of the American Academy ofPolitical and Social Science. STOR http://www.jstor.org Safety in the Chemical Industry By L. A. De Blois Manager, Safety and Compensation Division, E. I. duPont de Nemours & Company; past President, National Safety Council THERE exists no more fertile field for safety work than the chemical sometimes even exceeding 1000 pounds per square inch, and all these possess industry. While its accident record, spootential destructive power. far as known, has not been conspicuously Contributing in no small way to the bad, there have occurred from time inherent hazards of the industry are to time in various industries catas other factors less obvious but equally trophes of chemical origin, involving in difficult to control. The chemical in the aggregate much loss of life and dustry is the youngest child of applied property damage. Many of these science and has not yet advanced be accidents were unquestionably due to yond the stage of development to the the natural properties of the materials point where standardization of method being handled or to hazards inherent in and process is entirely practicable. In certain chemical processes--in other fact, in many of its branches--for ex words, to conditions essentially peculiar ample, the dye industry--it is still in to chemical work and likely to be met the experimental stages in which manu with in the chemical industry itself. facture is peculiarly subject to sudden Inherent Accident Hazards failures and to unexpected happenings. Indeed, the chemical engineer in design It seems hardly necessary to point ing new equipment or planning new out that in the wide diversity of chemi processes is often seriously handicapped cal processes there are encountered, in by absence of available information on addition to the common industrial acci the behavior of ingredients, products dent hazards, many dangerous ma or even common structural materials terials such as acids, alkalies and other under given process conditions and corrosive substances, as well as those must depend to an unusual degree on which are by nature irritating, intoxi his imagination and upon general de cating, irrespirable or directly toxic. ductions. The operating officials share Hazardous conditions affecting the to a great extent this same handicap. safety or health of employes may be Under such conditions it is by no means due to the presence of vapors, gases or surprising that serious injuries and dusts or to the substance itself in solid, even catastrophes take place. There liquid or molten state. An acute fire is, besides, a natural dearth of men, hazard may be present or there may be both of the salaried and payroll class, danger from an explosion of dust clouds experienced in chemical work. Of the or of vapor or gases in admixture with latter class, it is often necessary to air, or of the material itself either as a employ foreigners and a high rate of true explosive or when subject to rapid labor turnover caused by conditions decomposition under confinement. not always within the employer's con Many of the newer chemical processes, trol militates against the creation of a moreover, necessitate the use of high safe establishment. All these factors electrical voltages or heavy currents, add to the seriousness of the industry's high temperatures or high pressures, accident prevention problem, although 128 The Annals of the American Academy it can be conjectured that some at least will be offset by the natural develop ment which only time and experience can effect. We have said that the chemical in dustry offers a fertile field for accident prevention work. This is not because its accident record has been conspicu ously unsatisfactory but rather because conditions which are capable of causing accidents--using the term in its broad est sense--are particularly undesirable in a chemical plant. In such an es tablishment there are three factors of great economic importance, adverse variations in which are capable of se riously affecting not only the plant's operating efficiency but even the con tinuance of its existence as a successful commercial enterprise. Each of these factors is in turn adversely affected by accident occurrence. They are, briefly stated: (1) Conservation of materials. (2) Accuracy of chemical control. (3) Maintenance of equipment. While many of the commoner chemi cal ingredients cost but a few cents per pound, others, as well as some of the chemical products manufactured from relatively cheap ingredients by a proc ess that is expensive to operate, have values reaching from a few dollars to $50 per pound. Losses of such ma terials or products through explosion, fire, decomposition, leakage or escape of dust are not only commercially in tolerable but are sometimes the direct cause of bodily injury or occupational disease and, through their influence on plant housekeeping and maintenance, are the indirect cause of accidents of other sorts. Conservation of materials is therefore of importance both from the commercial and from the humane standpoint. Accuracy of chemical control de mands knowledge, experience, intelli gent supervision, high grade personnel, a trained and stable organization, good working conditions, suitable and relia ble equipment, pure ingredients and many other requirements found only in an efficiently conducted establishment. Absence of accurate chemical control inevitably results in poor yields and occasionally in serious accidents which interrupt the routine of manufacture, curtail production, increase operating costs, and disturb the peace of mind of all employed. Even minor accidents may result in depreciation or damaging of plant equipment, in loss of materials Chart I Safety in the Chemical Industry 129 or product, or in physical injury and, sometimes, death. In the chemical in dustry accurate control is indispensable. Maintenance of equipment is im portant from the commercial viewpoint because of the high first cost of chemi cal equipment, its rapid depreciation under even normal conditions of use and the bearing that its condition has on chemical control and the prevention of avoidable process losses. Single pieces of equipment, such as autoclaves, may cost $10,000 or more and the struc ture, foundation, piping and auxiliary appliances necessary for their opera tion, as much more. A single accident arising from faulty maintenance may not only wipe out the entire investment but entail physical injury and addi tional structural damage costing in ex cess of $50,000. Aside from the high rate of obsolescence due to rapid devel opments in the art, there frequently exists an abnormally high rate of de preciation from natural wear, often accentuated by the action of the in gredients on the equipment or by the nature of the process itself. Deprecia tion of fifteen per cent per year in the value of chemical equipment is not unusual and individual autoclaves, re torts or other process containers may last but a year, even when given the best of care. Almost invariably the rate of depreciation is increased by abnormalities in the process, in other words, by accidents. In some proc esses the rate of depreciation and the actual condition of the equipment is difficult to determine. If its deteriora tion progresses faster than expected or is increased by misuse or abuse, sudden and unexpected failure may result with consequent structural damage and loss of life. Careful inspection of equip ment and adequate maintenance are therefore essential to satisfactory oper ation and both depend to a great extent upon the existence of an enlightened administrative policy and the presence of a capable and efficient executive and production organization. Economic Advantages The joint effect on production effi ciency and accident occurrence of such important factors as cost of materials, chemical control and maintenance, and of the manufacturing conditions upon which they depend, will be readily understood by those familiar with plant operation. It is the raison d'etre of the familiar statement, " a safe plant is an efficient plant." In Chart I have been reproduced curves showing the five-year record of a chemical plant with somewhat over 1500 payroll em ployes. It will be noted that the rela tion between production efficiency (ex pressed as pounds of production per Group No. OF Total No. No. OF No. of All Frequency Severity Plants Employes Deaths Injuries Rate Rate Acid.................................. Explosives....................... Paint and Varnish .... Smelters and Copper Refiners....................... Dyes................................. By-Product Coke and Coal Tar..................... Miscellaneous................ Total................... 2 3 1 3 3 4 14 30 241 1804 2561 2744 4064 1625 6219 19,258 0 2 3 3 4 0 4 16 54 22 39 232 194 161 564 1266 76.2 5.1 6.3 27.2 24.9 36.4 34.1 26.1 9.03 2.81 3.18 2.90 4.74 1.00 2.65 3.07 130 The Annals of the American Academy payroll-hour) and injury occurrence (expressed as number of injuries per 1,000,000 pounds of production) is reciprocal; in other words, as safety increases efficiency increases, and vice versa. This is precisely what we should expect to find since, in the last analysis, accident prevention is but one form of waste prevention and waste is the enemy of efficiency. Safety Progress By carrying somewhat further the thought expressed in the preceding paragraph, we reach the conclusion that the most conspicuous accident reductions should be looked for in the records of the more efficient chemical plants and that the more progressive (and probably the larger) chemical manufacturing corporations should ex hibit signs of real progress in effective safety work that might be lacking in the case of the less progressive (and generally smaller) concerns. This, the author believes, does express the condi tion of affairs at the present time and also sufficiently explains why the chem ical industry as a whole, at least so far as available statistical information permits any conclusion, has as yet shown no conspicuous reduction in the frequency or severity of industrial in juries. That progress is being made in accident prevention within the chem ical industry is assured, but that the rate of progress is sufficiently rapid to overtake the expansion of the industry itself is open to question. Safety as a principle has been accepted by the present-day executive and engineer, but safety as a practice is quite another matter and many able executives and engineers do not yet see it as a subject of* primary importance, inextricably interwoven with production efficiency. Until they do so and make of it an executive function its advance will be faltering and slow. The injury records furnished the National Safety Council by the in dividual members of its Chemical Section show improvement in injury severity at least for, while the fre quency rate (number of injuries per million man-hours worked) increased from 24.61 in 1923 to 26.12 in 1924, the severity rate (number of days lost per thousand man-hours worked, weighted for permanent disability and death) decreased from 4.781 to 3.07,2 the latter figures representing a 36 per cent re duction. This is an excellent record, but one must remember that the mem bership of these companies in the Na tional Safety Council suggests that they are representative of the more ad vanced class rather than the average of the industry. The 1924 rates for the entire section are given on page 128. These groups are in themselves too small to permit comparison for relative hazard; the total figures, however, are significant. Comparison with those of other industries will probably convince the reader that, in spite of inherent hazards, work on a chemical plant can be made comparatively safe. In ex planation of this, Dr. C. L. Reese, former Chemical Director of the du Pont Company, President of the Amer ican Institute of Chemical Engineers and for years a close student of the chemical industry, is authority for the statement that where hazards are rec ognized extra precautions are taken to provide for the safety of the plant and its operatives. He states: This is notably true in the explosives industry, the accident record of which com pared with the records of many of the purely mechanical industries shows much lower loss of life, in spite of the spec tacular character of the accident losses 1 Mean rate for thirteen companies employing 7181 average employes. 2 Mean rate for thirty companies employing 19,258 average employes. Safety in the Chemical Industry 131 --all of which goes to show that recognition of danger, once established, is met by the exercise of extraordinary precautions. This doubtless applies also to other branches of the chemical industry. Outside Aid Through its Chemical Section the National Safety Council has made many valuable contributions to the ac cident prevention movement in the chemical field, which will be found in its published Proceedings, Safe Practice Pamphlets, Safety Bulletins, and Chemical Data Sheets. The recent report of its Benzol Poisoning Commit tee is an especially noteworthy contri bution. The National Fire Protection Association in its own field has added much authoritative information to what was previously a scanty fund of knowledge. Among state agencies contributing work of constructive value on the prevention of chemical injuries and occupational disease the depart ments of labor of New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and espe cially Pennsylvania and New Jersey should be mentioned. The U. S. Pub lic Health Service, Bureau of Mines and Department of Labor have also done much to help the chemical manu facturer, as have also many national associations, too numerous to be here mentioned. Research, investigation and the collection, correlation and publication of actual experience in chemical safety and health is constantly going on and in time there will be built up a body of authoritative information of immense value to those chemical manufacturers who are earnest in their desire to maintain safe and healthful industrial establishments.