Elimination of known hazards is the best way of preventing potential injuries and illnesses and is easiest to implement in the planning stages of new equipment and space design. This is the most difficult way of controlling hazards, but it will ultimately prevent injuries and illnesses from occurring. 

Examples of hazard elimination include:

• Removing or eliminating equipment, work processes, and materials that pose significant hazards
• Disposing of hazardous, and old, products that are no longer needed
• Abatement of hazardous building construction materials when designing new spaces
• Identifying the root cause of building issues and making repairs to prevent similar occurrences

Sometimes hazard elimination is not achievable due to cost, the nature of the application, and the required outputs of job processes. In this case substitution would be the next level of controlling hazards.

Examples of substitution include:

• Selecting alternative, less hazardous, chemicals
• Selecting alterative equipment with fewer hazards to their operators
• Upgrading old, hazardous, equipment with newer equipment

If elimination and substitution are not possible for controlling all or some of the hazards, the next level of control is engineering. Engineering controls remove or reduce hazard exposures at their source.

Examples of engineering controls include:

• Interlock systems that automatically stop processes for laser and robotic equipment
• Point-of-operation guards on machinery
• Local exhaust ventilation and fume extraction

Administrative controls are used when elimination, substitution, and engineering controls cannot be implemented or do not fully remove hazards. These controls involve procedural changes in work processes to reduce the time exposed to a hazard, the frequency of exposure to that hazard, and ultimately the severity of any potential exposures.

Examples of administrative controls include:

• Taking frequent breaks to reduce fatigue while
  • Working outdoors in hot and humid weather
  • Conducting strenuous activities, etc.
• Posting signage at the entrance to a space describing the hazard(s) within and precautionary measures that must be taken
• Utilizing time, distance, and shielding for exposures to radioactive sources

PPE is your last line of defense in any work process. It should only be used when all of the hazards of the work process cannot be fully controlled with all other steps of the Hierarchy of Controls. PPE ultimately relies on the individual for its use.

Example of PPE used to control hazard exposure include:

• Protective eyewear (chemical splash goggles, safety glasses, laser eyewear, etc.)
• Hearing protection (ear plugs or ear muffs)
• Face protection (face shields)
• Hand protection (leather gloves, cut resistant gloves, anti-vibration gloves, nitrile gloves, etc.)
• Foot protection (oil and cut resistant soles, toe protection, booties, etc.)
• Body protection (tyvek suits, aprons, lab coats, electrical safety clothing, etc.)
• Respiratory protection (filtering face pieces - N95, P100, etc, half face and full face respirators, powered air purifying respirators, etc.)
  • NOTE - Please contact EHS prior to selecting using respiratory protection as there are requirements at Rensselaer to follow before it is used.