Safety

WHS Legislation Note

As GCTechSpace does not employ anyone, it is not specifically required to adhere to WHS legislation as as advised by Worksafe QLD. That being said, we have some rules and basic principles of safety and provide PPE for members use. GCTechSpace encourages members to take all reasonable steps to protect their own safety as well as that of those around them by taking actions such as identifying and managing risks.

Rules

Hard and fast, these are the ones with consequences. Please abide by them.

1. If safety concerns are raised by another person, you must stop what you are doing, and agree upon reasonable safety measures before continuing.
2. You may never utilise a tool marked for inductions without having attended and passed said induction.
3. No person at GCTechSpace shall work on any electrical project or installation with a voltage greater than ELV. (as defined by AS/NZS 60950.1:2003 as “a voltage not exceeding 42.4 V peak or 60 V d.c.”) unless they are appropriately trained and licensed.
4. No person may leave any hazardous items unattended in the space, such as but not limited to:
   • Exposed wiring above ELV. (suicide cords, damaged tool cables etc)
   • Unlabelled chemicals or chemicals in a container that would otherwise contain food. (no acetone in water bottles etc)
   • Unsecured flammables. (Don’t leave paint thinner in the welding area)

Basic Principles

We consider these principles to be self evident and ‘common sense’, in order for everyone’s experience at GCTechSpace to run smoothly. Not acting in line with these is considered a ‘dick move’ in bird culture.

General Concepts

• Always consider the safety of yourself and others.
• Consider your apparel for safety. Tie back long hair, remove wedding rings, wear closed shoes.
• Consider your surroundings. IE, notify others in the room if you are about to start making loud noise.
• Everyone is encouraged to question safety openly, without animosity or fear of reprisal.
• All hazards must be reported immediately by tagging with a ‘Borked or Broken’ ticket and emailing [email protected]
• Always use suitable personal protective gear, this means at a minimum goggles in the workshops.
• Ensure tools and areas are left in a clean and serviceable condition upon your departure.

PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)

• You are strongly advised by GCTechSpace to wear appropriate PPE.
  • Rooms are designated with PPE recommendations
  • Tools are designated with specific PPE recommendations
    • Note that some tools specifically prohibit certain PPE, for example no gloves at the lathe.
• While GCTechSpace tries to provide basic PPE, you are encouraged to purchase and provide your own, as it will most certainly be of a higher quality and comfort.
• If PPE is missing, report it immediately by emailing [email protected].

Register of Injuries

If you come into injury at the space in any way, minor or major, please report it to [email protected]. This is so that they may maintain a register of injuries, which can be used to assess the space for environmental or policy changes.

Risk Management

What are risks?

Risks may fall into these categories

• Chemicals and Substance hazards – such as hazardous substances and dangerous goods, asbestos, lead and waste management. Consider any fume source or dust source.
• Biological hazards and infectious diseases – such as legionella, tetanus.
• Physical hazards – such as equipment, materials, electrical or working at heights.
• Manual tasks hazards – such as the use of the human body to perform any kind of manual task.
• Environmental hazards – such as noise, lighting, uneven floors, waste matter, surface grip, dust, cold and heat stress.
• Psychosocial hazards – such as fatigue, work-related stress, anger, harassment or violence.

Managing Risk

There are easily defined steps you should be taking to identify risk before using equipment at GCTechSpace.

1. Look for hazards There may be a large amount of dust around the table saw.
2. Determine who might be harmed and how You may slip while operating the saw
3. Decide on control measures You sweep the area and confirm dust collection is working, but find the dust hose has disconnected.
4. Put controls in place You reconnect the dust hose.
5. Review the controls Confirm dust collection is now working adequately, if not, adjust.

Control Measures should be implemented in the following order, this is known as the Hierarchy of Risk Control:

1. Remove the harm or prevent the risk
2. If this is not possible, replace with something less harmful
3. Separate people from the harm
4. Change work processes or the physical environment
5. Apply administrative arrangements (ie, limit entry to the area, spend less time in the area)
6. Use PPE

How to perform a risk evaluation

1. Identify a hazard Swarf from tools
2. Identify Likelyhood and Consequences before controls Likelyhood – Frequent Consequences – Medium (Cuts and lacerations, potential hazards to eyes.)
3. Identify Controls
   • Keep work area clean and tidy
   • Tools that produce swarf are in common areas
   • Tools that produce swarf have catchments or guards
   • Have eye bath facilities available
   • Wear eye protection, gloves, long sleeves, long pants, closed shoes or overclothing like overalls or aprons.
4. Review Likelyhood and Consequences after controls Likelyhood – Unlikely Consequences – Minor

Dangerous or Hazardous Materials

Hazardous substances are classified based only on health effects (whether they are immediate or long term), while dangerous goods are classified according to their immediate physical or chemical effects, such as fire, explosion, corrosion and poisoning, affecting property, the environment or people.

Common Hazardous Materials Include:

• solvents
• man-made mineral fibres
• lead containing paints
• polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)

Common Dangerous Goods Include:

• flammable liquids (petrol, kerosene, turpentine, flammable paints etc.)
• corrosives (hydrochloric acid)
• flammable gases (LP Gas)
• non-flammable non-toxic gases (CO2)
• asbestos
• explosives

Management of Hazardous Materials or Dangerous Goods: Members are expected to take responsibility for the safe handling of any hazardous material or dangerous good that they bring or introduce to the GCTechSpace site.

If items of a similar nature are already being stored onsite it is required that the member who wishes to introduce the material/goods investigate and abide by the current storage and handling procedures that are currently in place. E.g. The storage of LPG bottles within the cage.

If a member wishes to introduce a hazardous material or dangerous good which currently has no onsite handling or storage procedures, the member must investigate the hazard and propose safe handling methods and storage procedures (that they will follow) for the material that are published in the forums online and meet the approval of the GCTechSpace membership at a meeting prior to bringing the material onsite.