When I hear the words Hexavalent Chromium I immediately think of the 2000 movie Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts, where town residents suffered from health issues due to the lack of workplace safety of one particular company. It reminds me that workplace safety is not just tied to a company’s employees but to surrounding areas as well. Needless to say, when I heard that OSHA recently published a booklet on hexavalent chromium standards it caught my attention.

For those who don’t know “Hexavalent Chromium is primarily used as an anti-corrosive in paints and primers and also can be used when welding or metalworking. Hexavalent chromium is often hard and expensive to dispose of, so companies get rid of it illegally” as reported by ehow.com.

This new OSHA booklet on hexavalent chromium standards was developed to supplement OSHA’s Small Entity Compliance Guide for the Hexavalent Chromium Standards published in 2006. The booklet helps employers comply with hexavalent chromium standards and outlines them in a reader-friendly format. The topics covered in this 32 page booklet include:

• Exposure Limits
• Exposure Monitoring and Determinations
• Scheduled Monitoring Option
• Regulated Areas
• Control Measures
• Requirements for Protective Work Clothing and Equipment
• Hygiene Areas and Practices
• Housekeeping
• Medical Surveillance
• Worker Training and Communication
• Recordkeeping

This new booklet can be downloaded in pdf format by visiting http://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA-3373-hexavalent-chromium.pdf

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