Brief Relief Health and Safety
Why provide sanitation for your workforce?
The need of workers in the field to use toilet facilities can not be avoided.
Openly relieving themselves and/or working while distracted creates legal liabilities
and hazards in terms of health and safety.
Historically, workers have used four methods to meet their personal sanitation needs:
- Seek out a public conveniance.
- Utilize an unapproved container, often constructed from materials such as plastic bottles.
- Openly relieve themselves behind some obstruction such as vehicle doors, a bush, etc.
- Using inappropriate work areas such as manholes, vehicles, buckets, etc.
Each of these methods presents serious risks to the worker, the public and the company. A summary of the risks is provided below.
RISKS FROM UNSAFE SANITATION FACILITIES AND PRACTICES
Legal and Regulatory Risks
Workers urinating and defecating in public are in violation of local criminal laws related to public urination, disorderly conduct, and/or lascivious acts.
Workers urinating and defecating in public create a threat of civil litigation.
Workers urinating and defecating in public create a threat of legal proceedings and fines.
Awareness of these acts by the public creates poor impressions and relations. Commercial businesses, such as restaurants, may not welcome workers' use of their toilet facilities. The use of some commercial facilities, such as in pubs, creates poor public impressions and/or have been banned for such worker purposes.
Health Risks
Lack of adequate lavatory facilities, open containers of excreta, and public elimination create health threats to the worker and to others who may come into contact with the excreta by increasing the spread of diseases.
Lack of adequate facilities, etc. also provides a fertile environment for further bacterial growth.
No wash-up facility creates a health threat to the worker him or herself by increasing the spread of disease through self-infection.
Public conveniances are often unsanitary and/or difficult to locate.
Safety Risks
Increased probability of vehicular accidents.
Increased time engaging in behaviors with a high likelihood of injury such as lifting, lowering, and bending.
Accelerated deterioration of equipment leading to equipment failure.
Environmental Risks
The presence of urine and feces creates a fertile medium for bacterial growth.
The presence of urine and feces degrades overall environmental aesthetic quality.
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