News | December 18, 2023

Lead Battery Industry Comes Together to Advance Safety

Female employee representing the industry collaborating on employee respiratory safety

ABR’s Fall Meeting Focused on Employee Safety

Recently, ABR member companies came together during our 2023 Fall Meeting to share best practices and insights with peers. The annual conference is an opportunity for industry leaders to learn from each other and reaffirm our collective commitment of empowering responsible recycling of lead batteries through safe, sustainable practices and ensuring a cleaner, greener future for all.

Improving Safety Through Culture and Compliance

This year, attendees learned about improving safety by addressing the root causes of potential accidents and selecting personal protective equipment (PPE) that addresses worker concerns to increase compliance. Rob Medlock, senior occupational consultant with SCR Safety Solutions, shared insights into compliance and strategies for reducing injuries. Scott Shinn, application engineering specialist at 3M, spoke about the potential uses of powered air purifying respirator (PAPR) use in the lead battery recycling industry.

Keeping Employees Safe by Addressing Root Causes

As a consultant with SCR Solutions, Rob Medlock draws on more than 30 years of experience as a compliance officer and area director for OSHA. His presentation provided attendees with key insights for a safety management strategy at their facilities.

Everyone in the industry wants to reduce injuries and improve their safety culture. However, in his experience with OSHA, Medlock would see time and time again issues that were fixed after one inspection, reoccur on the next inspection. The reason for this is often that the underlying cause for the hazard was not addressed.

He emphasized the importance of incident analysis, not simply to fill out the form, but to understand the root cause and what is inherently wrong with the system or processes in place that allowed an incident or “near miss” to happen.

A root cause analysis focuses on identification of the real cause of a problem, rather than just the other contributing factors. If the root cause is corrected, it helps prevent recurrence of similar accidents or incidents.

Slide on the root causes for accidents and near misses

When you are building a safety culture within your organization, the goal of safety controls should be to engineer as many potential hazards out of the process as possible before resorting to additional PPE. To achieve this, it’s crucial for management and safety teams or consultants to collaborate directly with the employees doing the work.

Improving Respiratory Safety with Powered Air Purifying Respirators

Choosing the right respiratory protection for your workforce can be a challenge. It must provide adequate protection against respiratory hazards and be suitable for the environment in which it will be worn. But perhaps the greatest challenge is ensuring employees are complying with company guidelines for wearing the respirator provided. Regardless of the type of respirator used, the effective protection factor (EFP) is reduced every time an employee removes it.

Slide showing the effective protection vs U.S. OSHA assigned protection factor (APF)

Powered air purifying respirators (PAPR) use a battery powered motor blower to draw air through a filter or cartridge and delivers purified air to the worker. In his presentation, Scott Shinn of 3M shared a variety of challenges PAPRs can address.

Comfort is frequently a factor when it comes to lack of compliance for respiratory protection. A PAPR gives workers the option for a loose-fitting mask that may help in hot environments to reduce sweating and fogging that may occur with other, more tight-fitting masks.

PAPRs may also provide multiple PPE functions in a single piece of equipment, potentially replacing safety glasses or face shields and hard hats or bump caps, and are designed to work together to provide more robust protection. This can help reduce the number of eye injuries.

Because PAPRs are loose-fitting, they reduce the burden of fit testing on your safety team. They can also be worn with facial hair, eliminating the requirement for employees to be clean-shaven, which can be a benefit in a tight labor market.

Slide on the Powered Air Purifying Respirator (PAPR)

Overall, PAPRs provide a higher level of respiratory protection against airborne hazards that may be used in appropriate applications. However, Shinn recommends that companies should start with a PAPR trial and get feedback from a variety of users to identify and anticipate potential pain points. He also reiterates the importance of training workers to use, clean and maintain all aspects of PAPR equipment.

Fostering Continuous Improvement Through Collaboration

Through these semi-annual conferences, ABR provides member companies with ongoing opportunities to share best practices and learn from each other. We appreciate the willingness of our members and industry experts to collaborate as we all work together to continuously advance the safety and sustainability of the lead battery recycling industry.