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Risk assessments help prevent lubricant contamination

A health and safety risk assessment provides an ideal starting point in meeting the new food hygiene regulations that come into force next January, argues lubricant specialist Castrol. The new regulations will require manufacturers to have systems in place that are based on hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) principles.

An assessment will assist in identifying potential risks that should be considered and incorporated in a HACCP audit, says Castrol's Vince Haskins. In the food industry it means identifying, evaluating and managing the impact of risk to employees, the environment and the consumer, he adds.

The risk assessment required to create a safe system of work that will protect employees and consumers can be developed in one of two ways: by assessing the hazards present in processing areas or by assessing the hazards present in performing particular tasks.

Whichever is used, says Haskins, the first objective is to identify hazards. Only then can you focus on the people -- employees and consumers -- who could be affected by them and the consequences of incidents caused by them. The next step is to determine the risk level by assessing the severity of the consequences and the likelihood of incidents happening.

Next you need to consider how the severity and likelihood of an incident happening will be affected by controls that may already be in place, and whether those controls may be sufficient to allow the task to continue, says Haskins. If not, additional controls should be recommended to reduce the risk level to very low levels by eliminating, reducing, isolating and controlling them.

You now need to identify ways of controlling potential hazards to ensure that the task can be performed safely. This is done by creating safe working procedures.

For example, if poor hygiene is a potential hazard, the safe working procedure may call for clean overalls and hair nets in final product areas, a ban on jewellery or the wearing of gloves.

Similarly, the incorrect application of lubricants might require colour coding of dispensing equipment to ensure the correct product -- food grade or non-food grade -- is used in specified machinery. Therefore, for any risk assessment, more than one safe working procedure may need to be created.

Maintaining compliance requires that systems are reviewed regularly to ensure that they remain relevant to the task; and that regular discussions are held to ensure that everyone is aware of the safe system of work and complies with it for their own benefit and for the benefit of the consumer.

Tate & Lyle Thames refinery at Silvertown, London, is the largest cane sugar refinery in the world and also one of Castrol's largest lubrication management contracts in the food sector. With hundreds of items of equipment running continuous processes, Tate & Lyle is acutely aware of its responsibility to eliminate any possible product contamination from lubricants.

Engineering and projects manager Glenn Clarke says: "To ensure that food compatible lubricants are used wherever necessary, we worked with Castrol to develop a HACCP audit that identified areas that could be a potential risk. Wherever it was possible to completely remove the risk of contamination we use standard lubricants, but where there remained an element of risk we changed to food grade lubricants."

Contact: Castrol, Tel: 0845 9645111

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