Welding Hazards

The welder's right to be protected

In general it is the responsibility of the employer to identify any hazards that are to be found in the working environment and to provide the workers with adequate protection.

There are no second chances when it comes to your eyes

Many welding and cutting procedures emit dangerous light radiation. The most common eye injuries from UV/IR radiation are retinal burns and flash burns to the cornea. These high intensity light injuries are preventable when the proper protection is worn and used accordingly.

Injuries from welding fumes are insidious

After you find your ideal eye and face protection, you can still be exposed to the headaches, the sore throats, and the general fatigue that only seems to lessen when you’re on holiday. All welding fumes contain pollutants and the injuries they cause are insidious. Often illnesses due to welding fumes take many weeks, months and sometimes years to become apparent.

Immediate symptoms from exposure to welding fumes:

  • Eye and skin irritation
  • Nausea
  • Headache
  • Dizziness
  • Metal fume fever

Chronic insidious, injuries on:

  • Respiratory tract and lungs (including lung cancer)
  • The central nervous system (Parkinson’s Disease etc.)

Welding

Did you know ?

Eye Trauma is the leading cause of blindness worldwide. It is estimated that 116, 000 Australians present to hospitals, emergency departments and general practitioners every year with ocular injuries. These figures are probably conservative estimates, as they do not include those managed at work by on-site medical and nursing staff. Nearly one in ten adults presenting to emergency departments with an unintentional injury had sustained an injury to the eye. Welding and grinding were responsible for 29% of all eye injuries.

A Victorian study estimated that eye injuries cost the Australian community $155 million (Fong, 1995) each year.

Imberger, A. Altman., Watson, W., Altmann, A., Unintentional adult eye injuries in Victoria., Monash University Accident Research Centre – Report #137 – 1998
www.monash.edu.au
Fong LP., Eye injuries in Victoria, Australia., Med J Australia 1995., 162: 64-68

In some municipalities, authorities have set their own air quality standards for the city at large. By comparison, the standards for welding environments can be up to 100 times lower (that is, worse than) the city’s standards. What does this mean for the welder? Well, take for example the OEL (Occupational Exposure Limit) for zinc oxide, which is 5 mg/m3. Even if you’re within this OEL, you inhale up to 11 grams of zinc oxide every year.

Under normal working conditions the respiratory rate is about 20 litres of air/minute. Over a working year (100%), a welder breathes in about 2300 m3 of air. Under working conditions with 5 mg/m3 of welding particles in the air, a welder breathes in 11 grams of particles/year.

In three of every five eye injury cases, the worker was not wearing any type of eye protection.

Source: Summit Training Source Inc. in an article published by Health & Safety International, July 2003.

100 years after the invention of the arc welding helmet, eye injuries continue to be the most common acute injury suffered by welders.

Welders run a 40% greater risk than other professional groups of being affected by lung cancer because of their working environment.

Source: US Department of Health & Human Services (NIOSH) Pub. No. 88-110p iii.

Welders who smoke need more respiratory protection than non-smokers.

Source: Spring 1997 (Vol.12#1) issue of Liaison, The newsletter of the Occupational and Environmental Medical Association of Canada.