Environmental Hygiene

2 Risk management

2.1 Workplace monitoring

In order to accurately determine the level of risk, the principal and/or their delegate may need to consider specific workplace monitoring and engage the services of an Occupational Hygienist. Specific monitoring will provide results on the actual level of exposure, which can be used as a representative sample to compare against legislated maximum exposure standards.

If monitoring is required, the principal and/or their delegate should ensure that:

• the monitoring is specific to the contaminant and means of exposure (i.e. inhalation would require a different sampling method to ingestion)
• personal monitoring rather than static monitoring is conducted to define potential exposures. Static monitoring should only be used for measuring exposures when a strong correlation is found with personal monitoring
• monitoring is conducted and analysed by a competent person (e.g. Occupational Hygienist)
• the assessment is representative — neither worst case nor best case scenarios

2.2 Contaminant monitoring and exposure limit findings

Once the monitoring is completed, the reported findings should be provided to the principal and/or their delegate. The principal and/or their delegate are responsible for ensuring the implementation of the recommendations in the report in order to reduce the risk of exposure to employees.

If the principal and/or their delegate are provided with only the results of monitoring, they can compare them to the Occupational Exposure Limit (OEL) for that specific contaminant to determine the need for corrective actions and follow-up surveillance.

The principal and/or their delegate should contact the OHS Advisory Service on 1300 074 715 if they require assistance to interpret the findings in reports provided.