The importance of health and safety when dry ice blasting
I have recently noticed a lot of YouTube footage and photographs online, highlighting dry ice blasting of differing surfaces. As the industry grows then the more and more footage is uploaded.
One thing that has recently caught my attention is the clear lack of PPE in some of these videos and photos. Dry Ice Blasting can be very dangerous. It carries a high user risk element. Anything that can strip paint from metal will easily damage skin. I’ve seen so many photos of blast crews wearing T-Shirts and shorts, all it takes is a slip and the nozzle could blast over an unprotected arm, causing major injury.
There are photos where operatives aren’t wearing the correct breathing apparatus when blasting painted surfaces, machine grime, oil build up etc. I’ve even seen a video of a guy in a confined tank with just a paper mask on!
Bad working practice are what gives an industry a bad reputation. All it takes is for one serious accident to take place and the whole industry is black marked!
Unfortunately Dry Ice Blasting (along with other forms of blasting) hasn’t a body of control or accreditation linked to it at the moment. Training is left to the company owners, with no external audit body to oversee good practice.
Optimum Dry Ice Blasting, being an ISO9001 accredited company, realise the importance of an accreditation/certification to implement good practice. We are looking at setting up a code of good practice, a comprehensive training schedule and a certification scheme to offer our customer the assurances that they are dealing with a bone fide company in such a high risk trade.
Watch this space.
By Ian Reynolds
Update: 4/5/2014
Cryogenic Blast Operative Certification Scheme (CBOCS)
From our linkdIn Projects Page:
Optimum already offer a training package in dry ice blasting but we feel an industry body/certification is what is really needed.
Dry Ice Blasting can be costly in the wrong hands, not only to a customers machinery but also to our industry as a whole.
CBOC is currently a work in progress and will soon be launching. The aim of the certification is to raise standards across this rapidly growing sector and provide customers with a benchmark guarantee that they are dealing with a bone fide industry professional.