OVERVIEW

This book is a study of strategic approaches to managing the risks of working with hazardous substances in the European Union. Its central theme addresses developments at national and international levels concerning safety in the use of chemical substances at work. Its primary focus is the role of occupational exposure limits (OELs) in these developments and their translation again with particular reference to OELs into practices within workplaces and especially within the small and medium sized workplaces that constitute the vast majority of establishments in which people work in Europe. It sets out to answer two linked questions -

• What drives informed and competent risk management in chemical health and safety?

• What is the role (if any) of OELs in this process?

In seeking the answers to these questions and contextualising them within wider approaches to occupational health and safety (OHS) management in Europe, the book explores the challenges hazardous substances pose for effective OHS management. It grew out of a research project commissioned by the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances (ACTS) in the UK in 2002. ^[1] The aim of that project was to inform discussion of reform of the UK system for setting occupational exposure limits (OELs) by providing information on systems adopted for this purpose in other EU countries and on how such OELs are used in practice at workplaces in these countries. The contents of the present volume represent a considerable development of these aims. They encompass...