Occupational health and safety in the noisy work environments; from the perspective of lathe, saw and grinding mills in vavuniya district

Abstract

Occupational health and safety (OHS) are the key aspects of human concern. OHS aims for highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations. Recent technical advancements have brought up sophisticated machinery and equipment to both industrial production sector and to services and commerce. As such, mechanization results in greater vulnerability on the exposure to higher noise levels. Auditory and non- auditory health effects caused by the occupational noise exposure has broadly reported so far. However, in Sri Lanka, such studies on occupational noise exposure and subsequent health effects have not been extensively studied yet. In this study, we aimed to assess the noise levels in the working environment including grinding mills, Lathe/ metal processing and saw mills in the Vavuniya district and the views/ perception of workers on the impacts of occupational exposure to higher noise levels. Noise level measurements were obtained from randomly selected eight grinding mills, four lathe shops and 4 saw mills in Vavuniya district. TENMA 72-947 model sound level meter with the measurement range of 30dB to 130dB and the datalogging facility was used to take noise level measurements. Semi- structured interviews were conducted at respective measurement places to gather information about the status/views/ perception of workers about the auditory and non- auditory impacts of exposure to higher noise levels. Measured noise levels during the operation of machineries in the Grinding mills, Lathe and Saw mills were in the range of 90 to 98 dB, 78 to 94 dB and 92 to 100 dB respectively. Measured noise levels were well-above the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended noise level for industrial area (70 dB). Workers were well aware about the impacts; however, they were reluctant to have personal protective equipment (PPE) by stating the reasons including duration of exposure, cost for noise control setups and PPE and convenience. Thus, appropriate strategies to be implemented to avoid occupational health and safety related complications of workers who experience exposure to higher noise levels.