Noise As An Occupational Health Hazard In The Mining Industry

Discuss about the Noise in the Mining Industry.

Noise is one of the health hazards in the mining industry. It might be inevitable to totally alleviate noise in the mining industry due to the many technical operations involved. Due to the negative consequences associated with chronic exposure to noise, it is necessary that noise be substantially reduced. The intensity of sound is measured using units known as decibels. Decibels can be viewed as the units for measuring the degree of loudness. If an individual is exposed to more than 85 decibels for an average of 8 hours a day, the hearing ability can potentially be damaged. There is also a category of noise known as nuisance noise. This kind of noise does not necessarily cause hearing impairment but has adverse psychological effects that may negatively affect the performance of the employees. The causes of noise in the mining industry are varied and could be very difficult to control (Lu, 2016). The best control strategy is to minimize the noise to the lowest achievable level. In the modern days, governments are taking occupational health issues very seriously. If the health of the workers is compromised, the level of productivity is very low. In this assignment, noise as an occupational health hazard in the mining industry is going to be discussed. Specifically, the following will be discussed: how the health hazard manifests itself in the mining industry, legislative requirements relating to the health hazard, standard industry practice relating to the elimination or the minimization of the health hazard and its effectiveness.  Causes And Effects Of Noise In The Mining Industry Discussion Paper

The cause of noise in the mining industry is caused by the numerous mining machinery. The operations of mining are environmental pollutants by nature. The effects of noise are dose related. This implies that the higher the amount of noise the greater the risk of suffering the negative effects of noise pollution (Nair, 2014). There are three factors that determine the level of noise that would cause harm. One is intensity/loudness. This is measured by a special noise metre whose units are decibels. As indicated earlier, if noise is more than 85 decibels it is potentially hazardous. Levels lower than that have been shown not to have any significant effect on hearing capability of a worker. The second factor is frequency. The third factor of consideration is the duration that a worker has been exposed to noise.

Manifestation Of The Occupational Hazard

The occupational hazard could manifest itself as hearing impairment. The hearing impairment could affect one or both ears. It could also be partial or complete hearing impairment (Morgan et al, 2016). This is mainly associated with the tasks that a worker has in the mining industry. The kind of impairment could also be described as acoustic trauma or hearing loss that is noise-induced. Acoustic trauma refers to the kind of impairment that mainly cause damage to one ear. The trauma is mainly caused by short term exposure to intense noise or what is usually referred to as explosion (Badenhorst, 2018). On the other hand, noise-induced hearing damage refers to damage of the inner ear. This kind of damage is mainly caused by long term exposure to noise (Shim, 2015). The period exposure could be months or even years.

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Continued exposure to elevated noise has been known to be a cause of stress. Stress is in turn associated with negative health effects. There are several negative effects of increased levels of stress. These are going to be discussed next. One is that the likelihood of accidents in the mining workplace increases (Simpson and Horberry, 2018). It has been found to be extremely difficult for one to concentrate on their jobs while stressed. This is what causes the accidents. Another effect of stress is hypertension. Elevated blood pressure is another hazard that is caused by stress. If not managed, it could lead to more adverse effects or even death. The other implication of stress is preterm births for pregnant mothers (Taneja, 2014). For these reasons, it is necessary that the noise level in the mining industry be reduced to acceptable levels.

Continued exposure to noise has also been shown to have some psychological impacts. These psychological effects include annoyance, effects on the psychosocial wellbeing and psychiatric disorders (Maison and Rauch, 2017). Health has been defined to include the physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing. If one of these aspects of health and wellbeing, then the overall health is going to deteriorate. Due to these effects, a worker may not be effective in their job performance. It could cause changes in personalities. It could also cause addiction to loud sounds or noise. It can be seen from these observations that there are various ways in which the noise hazard manifests itself in the mining industry.

As observed in the discussion above, if someone is exposed to elevated noise for a long period, there is a likelihood of hearing impairment. In most of the cases, the hearing damage caused by such noise is irreversible. Causes And Effects Of Noise In The Mining Industry Discussion Paper  Therefore, the most effective method of managing these kinds of damage is through preventing their occurrence. In realization of this, most governments around the world has set some regulations and legislative requirements to ensure that these kinds of damages are kept at minimum in the mining industry. This section is going to concern itself with these legislative requirements.

Legislative Requirements Relating To The Health Hazard

In western Australia, there are legislative guidelines for management of noise in mining operations. The legislative requirements stipulate that the occupational health hazards that are related to noise in the mining workplace are managed effectively. The guidelines pay a special attention to hearing impairment since it is the major occupational health implication of noise in the mining industry. The guidelines stipulate how the noise exposure levels should be measured, the written noise report requirements and a plan for controlling noise. In addition, the guidelines recommend some ways of reducing noise in the mining work place and methods of minimising exposure. In the following paragraph, these guidelines are going to be discussed in brief detail.

There are measures put in place to measure the level of noise exposure to workers in a mining site. When taking these measures, the protective gear by the workers are not put in to consideration. Therefore, the levels that are established as safe, are those that would not cause any hearing damage to a worker who does not have any protective gear. The measure that has been established is 85 decibels for a period of 8 hours in a day. Within these levels, it is unlikely that the noise will cause hearing damage (Butler and Whelan, 2018). The law also requires a noise report of any mining operations. These reports should be submitted as soon as possible upon commencement of the mining operations. The period for submission should be within one year of commencement. The purpose of preparing and submitting these reports is to decide what measures could be taken to reduce the noise and carry out a review of how efficient those measures could be.

The report submitted is also the one used to come up with a noise control plan. The law requires that a noise control plan be prepared within six months upon submitting the noise report. It lists the treatments that will be used to curb the noise and a timetable for implementing those treatments. In other countries, there are government bodies that are concerned with regulation of occupational health. For instance, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States.

The standard industry relating to elimination of noise include elimination/substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls and personal protective equipment. A brief description of each these practices is going to be discussed next. Elimination implies achieving the noise control when designing and installing equipment. This is mainly achieved when starting a new mining operation. Substitution refers to replacing the noise causing equipment with other equipment that produces less noise (Nemati, Nadeau and Ateme-Nguema, 2017). Engineering controls can be used for existing mining work places. They include reducing machine operations that are noisy by measures such as replacing rivets with welds (Manwar, Mandal and Pal, 2016). The administrative controls include measures such letting the workers and other people know when there will be noisy operations so that they can avoid it. It could also include job rotations to avoid a situation where a worker is exposed to noise for extended periods of time. Personal protectors imply the protective gear that a person can use on their ears to avoid the detrimental effects of exposure to loud noise (Sha and Schacht, 2017).

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Standard Industry Practice Relating To The Elimination Or The Minimisation Of The Health Hazard

Conclusion

Noise is the one of the occupational health hazards of the mining industry. It has been known to cause several negative health effects. These include hearing impairment, stress and a deterioration in the psychological wellbeing. The intensity/loudness of noise is measured in decibels. If the level of exposure is more than 80 decibels, there is a high likelihood of developing hearing impairment. The occupational health hazard manifests it self in the following three main ways. One of these ways is hearing loss or hearing damage which may affect either one ear or both. The other method is through stress which has adverse health effects such as hypertension and preterm births among the pregnant mothers. The third way is through deterioration of psychological wellbeing.

There are legislative requirements put in place by governments to ensure that those who work in mining sites are protected from noise. For instance, in western Australia there are legislative guidelines for minimising the effects. These include noise reports and action plan. The standard industry practice for minimisation of the hazard include personal measures, elimination/substitution, administrative measures and engineering controls.

References

Badenhorst, C. J. (2018). 1636e Good practice guidance on occupational health risk assessment.

Butler, C. D., & Whelan, J. (2018). Air Pollution and Climate Change in Australia: A Triple Burden. In Climate Change and Air Pollution (pp. 131-149). Springer, Cham.

Lu, C. Y. (2016). Occupational Safety Management in The Mining Sectors of China and Australia: A Short Introduction. Journal of Health & Medical Economics, 2(1), 2.

Maison, S. F., & Rauch, S. D. (2017). Ethical considerations in noise-induced hearing loss research. The Lancet, 390(10098), 920-922.

Manwar, V. D., Mandal, B. B., & Pal, A. K. (2016). Environmental propagation of noise in mines and nearby villages: A study through noise mapping. Noise & health, 18(83), 185.

Morgan, R. L., Thayer, K. A., Bero, L., Bruce, N., Falck-Ytter, Y., Ghersi, D., … & Mustafa, R. A. (2016). GRADE: assessing the quality of evidence in environmental and occupational health. Environment international, 92, 611-616.

Nair, C. (2014). Noise-induced hearing loss. InnovAiT, 7(4), 204-208.

Nemati, A., Nadeau, S., & Ateme-Nguema, B. (2017). Lean tools adaptation into mining: an occupational health and safety approach.  Causes And Effects Of Noise In The Mining Industry Discussion Paper