Safety standards
Type of regulation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities and processes, etc. Additional descriptive terms may help to clarify what hazards are being addressed, such as workplace safety standards (to keep workers safe), food safety standards (to verify that food is safe to eat), or consumer product safety standards (to ensure that manufacturers only sell products that are safe for consumers).They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory. In October 2021, a fire raging through multiple floors of a dilapidated apartment block in Kaohsiung highlighted the lax fire safety standards in Taiwan.[1] China has recently experienced trouble with some of the post listed associations.
Categories
Workplace
Workplace safety standards are set by a number of different organizations depending on where people are located. The standards are designed to keep workers safe from hazards present in the workplace. Some standards may be legally enforceable with citations and fines (ex. OSHA),[2] while others may provide information about best practices in industry (ex. ACGIH).
| Country | Workplace Safety and Health Agencies |
|---|---|
| Australia | Safe Work Australia[3] |
| Canada | Federal: Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS)[4]
Provincial: WorkSafeBC (British Columbia),[5] Workplace Safety and Prevention Services (WSPS) (Ontario),[6] WorkSafeNB (New Brunswick),[7] and CNESST (Quebec)[8] |
| Europe | European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA)[9] |
| UK | Health & Safety Executive (HSE)[10] |
| United States | Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA),[2] National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH),[11] American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH)[12] |
Fire
Fire safety standards are developed to minimize fatalities in building fires and to save as much life and infrastructure as possible. Fire safety standards may be known as fire codes, with equipment often planned for and installed during construction so that the buildings can have features that protect the occupants, such as fire extinguishers, fire alarms, fire suppression systems, egress/emergency exit routes, and other features.
Food
Food safety standards are placed so that the food that people consume meet certain levels of quality and does not hurt them in any way.
Consumer
Consumer product safety standards are enforced so that consumers are protected against hazards in manufactured products.
| Consumer Product Safety Organizations | Laws | |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)[22] | |
| Canada | Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA)[23] | Canada Consumer Product Safety Act,[24] Hazardous Products Act[25] |
| Europe | General Product Safety Directive (GPSD)[26] | |
| UK | Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS)[27] | |
| United States | Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)[28] | U.S. Consumer Product Safety Act[29] |
See also
- Consumer protection
- Bicycle safety
- China compulsory certification
- Injury prevention
- Public administration
- Road safety
- Standards organization
- Testing organizations
- Baseefa (UK)
- Canadian Standards Association (Canada)
- Technischer Überwachungsverein (Germany, UK, China & USA)
- Underwriters Laboratories (USA)
- Toy safety
- Safety by design
Further reading
- Andrew Szasz. 2007. Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves. University of Minnesota Press.
- JoAnne Yates and Craig Murphy. 2019. Engineering rules: global standard setting since 1880. Johns Hopkins University Press
