| Posted: Wed Jul 29th, 2009 08:01 pm |
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21st Post |
Maria
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For any of you who didn't have the pleasure of meeting Beth at the Conference, she really *is* a lawyer.
Beth, it was wonderful to get to know you and really appreciate your participation on our Bulletin Board. Hope you found the Conference educational and inspirational! Maria
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| Posted: Wed Jul 29th, 2009 08:53 pm |
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22nd Post |
Rona
AGG Member
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She also moonlights as a Niagara Falls tour guide...
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| Posted: Thu Jul 30th, 2009 01:53 am |
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23rd Post |
| Posted: Thu Jul 30th, 2009 02:04 am |
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24th Post |
Beth
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Rebecca wrote: Beth's not playing.
Rebecca
Perhaps I just play a lawyer on TV.
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| Posted: Thu Jul 30th, 2009 05:22 am |
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25th Post |
Beth
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Maria wrote: For any of you who didn't have the pleasure of meeting Beth at the Conference, she really *is* a lawyer.
Beth, it was wonderful to get to know you and really appreciate your participation on our Bulletin Board. Hope you found the Conference educational and inspirational! Maria
I can honestly say that I enjoyed the conference immensely, and really did find it both educational and inspirational! I think I am more creatively charged right now than I have ever been about glass. I left with a lot of ideas and thoughts about what I want to do with glass. I am even thinking about glass painting, a medium I never considered before because I can't even doodle and my painting is limited to the walls of my house [although they are rather colorful]. One thing I really enjoyed about the conference was that it appealed to my intellectual nature. That is the opposite of my experience at the Glass Expo in Vegas last April, which seemed to be about playing and separating me from my money either at the Expo or the slots. :-)
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| Posted: Thu Jul 30th, 2009 05:34 am |
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26th Post |
Beth
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Rona wrote: She also moonlights as a Niagara Falls tour guide...
It is always good to have something to fall back on, especially in this economy.
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| Posted: Thu Aug 13th, 2009 05:23 am |
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27th Post |
bkessler
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The litigious nature of our society is troubling/amusing, but the lead poisoning concerns of your students is not completely off-base.
"Back in the day" we had our studio attached to our house and when the kids started coming, we wanted to be sure that we handled lead properly (being in such close proximity to our home). We contacted NIOSH and had them do a lead study of our studio. I believe that one can find the study on-line somewhere, but I only have the printed copy. The short version is that we handled lead very well and they did not detect any contamination of our home.
NIOSH did make a few recommendation, though:
1. Wear gloves. Despite your correct assertion that lead is not absorbed directly into your skin, a full day of working with lead will get your skin quite "loaded.'' Certainly washing your hands works (we use an abrasive lead-removing soap), but with gloves that task is much more likely to be completely successful. If your hands are not cleaned well, you risk ingesting the lead when you eat later in the day. Gloves are not a problem; you get used to them. I have handled thousands of pieces of glass and cannot say I ever remember dropping any (I find much more creative ways to screw up!). I buy gloves in bulk and sometimes go through a dozen a day, changing them whenever the glass or glazing nails puncture them. No biggie. I find that the powered type work best so that the new pair slips on easily. I stock three different sizes so that anyone working for me can comfortably wear them. I recommend anyone working with lead to use gloves, it really keeps you hands much cleaner.
2. High-Tac mats: We use layered high-tac mats at the entrance to our (current) studio and mud-room. Anyone exiting our studio must step on these mats, which have 30 layers and can be peeled away when soiled. These mats keep lead dust picked up on the soles of shoes from contaminating the outside environment, as well as the stray glass shard (We are currently in a artist warehouse building and these mats keep our crap in our place instead of tracking it around). We also have one outside the putty room. I make folks puttying my windows wear jumpsuits, hairnets, booties, and particulate masks too. NIOSH found that the greatest airborne levels of lead were in the mud-room, caused by the whiting picking up lead particles during the cleaning stage.
3. Ventilation system: NIOSH found levels of zinc chloride and lead in the tubes of our ventilation system. For complicated reasons, it collects in the tubes (which eventually have to treated has hazardous waste), but never makes it out into the environment. The soldering process creates (at the least) irritating vapours and potentially hazardous fumes from the chemicals in the flux and eliminating those fumes with a vent system is the most effective way to deal with it. A good ventilation system eliminates the need for masks. I can't remember the last time I smelled that unique acidic odour of vaporized paste flux!
We also have safety glasses that folks wear when cutting glass or when standing at the grinder.
No work place can be made perfectly safe, but those of us who work with sharp glass pieces, potentially poisonous chemicals and lead-came owe it to ourselves and our workers to take safety seriously.
Last edited on Thu Aug 13th, 2009 05:30 am by bkessler
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| Posted: Thu Aug 13th, 2009 05:09 pm |
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28th Post |
Rona
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Thanks so much for posting your thoughts, which I found really interesting. I have just spent time going back though my reports and notes and offer the following.
I fully understand your concerns about children near lead and think that your study was a very sensible precaution. Did you have your water supply checked too?
The litigious nature of our society is troubling/amusing, but the lead poisoning concerns of your students is not completely off-base. The perception of risk, and the degree of any risk, in much of society seems skewed. The couple who were deeply concerned about lead poisoning did not know why they were concerned – they were worried because of a gut reaction, apparently nothing more informed than that. They signed up for a lead-working class but did not contact me beforehand, nor did they do any research themselves (as a librarian and a teacher I might have expected them to address any concerns that they might have before the fact). The word lead comes up and there is an instant knee-jerk reaction which apparently over-rides any sensible thought processes.
Had they wanted them, I had a slew of reports about how much lead it takes to pose a significant threat to children (Statistics for adults are much more difficult to find – the main risk of lead poisoning is universally acknowledged to be to children, which is where all major studies have concentrated. The few statistics for adults tend to be for people working full-time, week in, week out, with lead. Lead poisoning is, of course, cumulative so much more likely to pose a problem for someone working with it constantly)
When I said that dropping a box of lead on the foot is a serious risk, this was greeted with laughs. This seems to me perverse.
I believe that one can find the study on-line somewhere, but I only have the printed copy. Was unable to find it, though there is some stuff on the NIOSH website about lead poisoning, again for professionals working daily, all day, with lead.
The short version is that we handled lead very well and they did not detect any contamination of our home.
Happy result! And reassuring too.
NIOSH did make a few recommendation, though:
1. Wear gloves.
Presumably, therefore, you were not at this time wearing gloves? And there was no contamination anyway? Yet they made recommendations to fix what wasn’t broke? Did they say what was the rationale behind that?
Despite your correct assertion that lead is not absorbed directly into your skin, a full day of working with lead will get your skin quite "loaded.''
My two thoughts on this are
- No student on a 2-day course will spend a full day leading.
- If I am spending a day leading, I wash my hands when I take a coffee break (very regular!). I wash my hands when I go to the toilet (both before and after). I wash my hands when I take a lunch break. The skin doesn’t absorb, and you are removing any lead on the surface each time, so it cannot get “loaded”. I used to put on a barrier cream but since, as you agree, the skin doesn’t absorb lead and my hands felt slippery, I gave it up. I do use conditioner a lot though, cos all that washing takes the essential oils out.
You state that “Certainly washing your hands works” with no caveat (I too use an abrasive soap) so how can it be “much more likely to be completely successful” wearing gloves? If something works, it works.
If your hands are not cleaned well, you risk ingesting the lead when you eat later in the day. I got typhoid as a child from someone who prepared food without washing her hands. Because you’ve been working with lead is surely not the only reason that you would always wash hands before touching food?
Gloves are not a problem; you get used to them.
My two students both had a problem leading up while using gloves; in the space of a weekend workshop, with a couple of hours leading, they did not get a chance to get used to them and found them difficult; on top of all the other things they had to master this seems unnecessary.
I buy gloves in bulk and sometimes go through a dozen a day, changing them whenever the glass or glazing nails puncture them. No biggie. OK, this must be the Green in me but I’m truly shocked at such profligate waste. I can just see the landfill piling high… um... isn’t this “contaminating the outside environment” with both the lead on the gloves AND the gloves themselves? If people want to wear gloves while working, it would be better to wear proper protective gloves (kevlar or suchlike) rather than disposable rubber. These give protection from cuts and scratches as well as keeping lead off the skin. Unfortunately, they are also clumsy and impede your ability to do fine work.
2. High-Tac mats: We use layered high-tac mats at the entrance to our (current) studio and mud-room. Anyone exiting our studio must step on these mats, which have 30 layers and can be peeled away when soiled. These mats keep lead dust picked up on the soles of shoes from contaminating the outside environment, as well as the stray glass shard... We also have one outside the putty room.
I too have mats (just standard, not sanitary spec.) at all entrances, as much to stop mud being trailed in as stuff being trailed out. But I found myself wondering about the lead dust… I can see the thing about some lead dust getting mixed in to the whiting. When I cement, I get a little whiting on the floor, so presumably with an even smaller amount of lead dust. I brush that up before I finish in the room, so there will only be what has caught on the soles of my shoes. Then I wipe my feet on the mat at the door of the cementing room. The amount of lead dust still there must be of homeopathic quantities, so I wonder if high-tac mats are really needed? And if you are just leading up work, where does the lead dust come from?
Presumably the high-tac mats are made of polyethylene film? Since they are now contaminated, they cannot be recycled so they, too, go to the outside environment of the landfill?
I make folks puttying my windows wear jumpsuits, hairnets, booties, and particulate masks too. NIOSH found that the greatest airborne levels of lead were in the mud-room, caused by the whiting picking up lead particles during the cleaning stage.
I found this very interesting. I actually DO wear gloves when cementing - whiting dries out the skin and cement is very dirty, and since cementing is not finicky work they do not impede you. I was always taught to brush away from myself – keeps you cleaner and you don’t get whiting in your face – but I agree masks are a good idea. I always thought the point of a hairnet was to stop hair falling in to stuff (food mainly) so why the hairnet? By booties, I think you mean those disposable covers for shoes? Which you take off when you finish and don’t wear outside? So – where does the lead dust to be trapped in the High-tac mat come from?
3. Ventilation system: NIOSH found levels of zinc chloride and lead in the tubes of our ventilation system. For complicated reasons, it collects in the tubes (which eventually have to treated has hazardous waste), but never makes it out into the environment. The soldering process creates (at the least) irritating vapours and potentially hazardous fumes from the chemicals in the flux and eliminating those fumes with a vent system is the most effective way to deal with it. A good ventilation system eliminates the need for masks.
So does changing your flux. I never use paste, liquid or gel flux – I use tallow, which has no associated problems of fumes (with non-animal stearin on hand for vegetarians if they want). No nasties to start with means you don’t have to find solutions.
We also have safety glasses that folks wear when cutting glass or when standing at the grinder. As I said, neither of the students bothered taking their safety glasses out of the packets. I don’t have grinders but I feel it’s really important to protect your eyes from flying glass. Neither of them seemed concerned about this. See my opening remarks!
No work place can be made perfectly safe, but those of us who work with sharp glass pieces, potentially poisonous chemicals (don’t know about you, I work with actually poisonous chemicals and take precautions accordingly) and lead-came owe it to ourselves and our workers to take safety seriously.
Absolutely. We also owe it to ourselves and our workers – and our students – to be realistic about our concerns. I pointed out to the two that they were in fact more likely to be involved in a car crash when they went out to a family party that night than to suffer lead poisoning after two hours working with it, so suggested they take a bus – statistically much safer.
There is an expression in Derbyshire (where I used to live) “He looked at me gone out” which is shorthand for “He looked at me as if I had gone out of my mind”. They looked at me gone out, then laughed as if I had made a witty, though slightly tasteless, joke.
I think there are plenty enough things in this world to be genuinely scared of without turning non-problems in to problems.
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| Posted: Thu Aug 13th, 2009 05:44 pm |
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29th Post |
bkessler
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I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on the means to protect yourself in the work environment.
Your assumption that washing your hands regularly if sufficient is valid for YOU because you are being careful. Students/employees are (notoriously?) unpredictable. I like the idea of keeping the lead off me in all possible ways and the gloves can only improve that goal. There are many other ways that I am "green" (recycling ALL lead scraps, paper/cardboard/bottles/cans), so I will not lose any sleep over the gloves.
You must be very fastidious in your use of whiting, because my mud-room is a mess. The outfit servers two purposes: keeping the dust off me and the lead off my clothes since the whiting process creates dust clouds (As I mentioned, NIOSH found significant airborne lead in the whiting-dust). The hairnets keeps the dust down that can get into your hair, the booties and jumpsuits keep your shoes and clothes clean. They also can be reused many times, so it may not be as "wasteful" as you fear. It is impossible to get out of the mudroom without tracking out some dust, hence the mats. I bet if you set a high-tac mat outside your workspace and saw what tracks you left (on what you assumed where clean shoes), you would be surprised at what was left behind! Again, you are assuming that students/employees are going to be as careful as you.
I don't know about tallow, but I bet nothing is completely safe when it is vaporized and breathed in. Maybe you won't get cancer from it, but then again you might be more susceptible to infection?? For the materials that we use in our production environment, I have chosen to protect myself as best I can.
Time has a nasty habit of proving non-problems were in fact problems. Taking a few extra precautions is not paranoia. It is choosing not to be a guinea pig.
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| Posted: Thu Aug 13th, 2009 10:48 pm |
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30th Post |
Rona
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I think this has got slightly sidetracked – employees are of course a different thing (as are employers) because of their continuous exposure to lead, but my original question was about weekend students who are just passing through and have fairly brief and minimal exposure to lead.
I suspect I am lucky – I have a very small studio (me mainly!) and when I do have to buy in help I make sure they stick to my standards. Much easier to do over a few days than with permanent staff, I concede. But my problem was 2 students who apparently thought they were about to collapse with lead poisoning if they handled lead at all though they completely disregarded safety for their eyes. You at least are consistent in your safety measures.
BTW, I had another shot at trying to find the report you mention and thought I had, but it appears to be a different version of yours – it only has two recommendations – no mention of gloves at all in either of them (though it mentions elsewhere that you use them), no recommendation of a mat (though it mentions elsewhere that you have them), no recommendation of a ventilation system. The one I found actually doesn’t recommend a mask for cementing either, it said “A dual cartridge, high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter and organic vapor, should be used.” Ooh–er. Did you have a second inspection, or is this a sort of cut-down and condensed version? Is your copy out there as well?
Your assumption that washing your hands regularly if sufficient is valid for YOU because you are being careful.
Mebbe I’m deluding myself, but I like to think I can usually teach students to be equally careful and so their precautions are equally valid.
Students/employees are (notoriously?) unpredictable. I like the idea of keeping the lead off me in all possible ways and the gloves can only improve that goal. There are many other ways that I am "green" (recycling ALL lead scraps, paper/cardboard/bottles/cans), so I will not lose any sleep over the gloves. That’s fine, we all have different levels of what we think is acceptable. I was just saying that I’d find chucking all those contaminated gloves and mats and booties in to landfill totally unacceptable for my lifestyle; what you choose to do is of course your concern.
You must be very fastidious in your use of whiting, because my mud-room is a mess. Actually, I think it’s probably just a training and practice thing.
The outfit servers two purposes: keeping the dust off me and the lead off my clothes since the whiting process creates dust clouds (As I mentioned, NIOSH found significant airborne lead in the whiting-dust). The hairnets keeps the dust down that can get into your hair, the booties and jumpsuits keep your shoes and clothes clean. They also can be reused many times, so it may not be as "wasteful" as you fear.
I actually didn’t suggest at all that they were wasteful – never even mentioned the jumpsuits, which sound OK if that’s what you want – I have specific clothes and apron solely for cementing, and was genuinely curious about the hairnets. I still feel that if you discard the booties in the cementing room, and wipe your feet as you come out, the amount of lead dust on the floor must be miniscule. The report I found said that, although the studio was not cleaned, the floor had the lowest levels of lead of surfaces tested.
It is impossible to get out of the mudroom without tracking out some dust, hence the mats. I bet if you set a high-tac mat outside your workspace and saw what tracks you left (on what you assumed where clean shoes), you would be surprised at what was left behind! You lose the bet. I change my shoes when I leave the studio, because I assume that they’re NOT clean.
Again, you are assuming that students/employees are going to be as careful as you. (That word again! You’re assuming what I’m assuming!) I never assume that students are as careful as me, which is why the college I taught at told the other staff that I was harder on students, insisting on them observing their H & S procedures, than any of the other tutors.
I don't know about tallow, but I bet nothing is completely safe when it is vaporized and breathed in. Maybe you won't get cancer from it, but then again you might be more susceptible to infection?? Gosh, now there’s a lawsuit in the making! All McDonald’s employees to 1990 can claim that making fries made them more susceptible to infection! Need a job, Beth?
Time has a nasty habit of proving non-problems were in fact problems. Also – ploughshares to swords – of proving problems were invented.
Taking a few extra precautions is not paranoia. It is choosing not to be a guinea pig. Which is one reason why I won’t use new flux-u-like or miraklputti or any of the recent chemical concoctions – I stick with things that have been being tried and tested for decades if not centuries and the guinea pigs have long since shown results.
I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on the means to protect yourself in the work environment. I agree!
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| Posted: Sat Aug 15th, 2009 08:02 pm |
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31st Post |
Krueger
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Rona, you never said whether the class was in your studio or at a community college. If at a community college you might ask them if there are waivers for other classes, such as wood shop, ceramics, blacksmith or situations where one might get cut or burned. I wonder if Penland, Pilchuck or Arrowmont have students sign a waiver???
Barbara in Michigan
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17th, 2009 08:41 pm |
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32nd Post |
Rona
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Hi Barbara
That's an interesting thought. My class was actually in my studio, but I'm having a meeting next week with a local community college about classes they want me to run there, so I must ask them about that. Thanks for the suggestion.
I might see if I can find out about the places you mention. I don't know if the colleges back in UK do anything like that, but I'm still in touch with several ex-students so I must get them to plough through the paperwork and see if it's mentioned.
When are you off to BSMGP conference? Have a great trip!
Rona
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