Journal of Environment and Safety
Online ISSN : 2186-3725
Print ISSN : 1884-4375
ISSN-L : 1884-4375
Volume 6, Issue 3
Displaying 1-8 of 8 articles from this issue
Research Papers
  • Yusuke Koshiba, Yuji Suzuki
    2015 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 135-140
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 10, 2015
    Advance online publication: October 07, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to investigate the perception of fire risks of university members: faculties and students. The present study statistically compared the risk perception characteristics of the members belonging to chemistry department (Group Chem) with those the members belonging to mechanical department (Group Mech). The results indicated that Group Chem has a greater sense of dread than Group Mech; this work also found that Group Chem perceive a greater magnitude of fires than Group Mech.
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  • Etsu Yamada
    2015 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 141-149
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 10, 2015
    Advance online publication: October 04, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Eleven volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as chloroform and dichloromethane, and hydrogen fluoride (HF) were measured using gas detector tubes in the college laboratories from 2005 to 2014. The results obtained using gas detector tubes for 10 years were compared with those by authorized measurements conducted by external organizations.Risks including VOCs such as benzene in laboratories decreased due to the use of fume hoods and alternative solvents. However, risks including VOCs such as chloroform and dichloromethane in laboratories are increasing due to the increase of used amounts and difficulties of fume hoods use from 2008. The laboratories where average concentrations of chloroform were around 1ppm(administrative level 3ppm) and other VOCs such as ethyl acetate were also detected using gas detector tubes were classified “Control class II or III” by external measurement.From the analysis of annual changes in the concentrations of VOCs in college using gas detector tubes, it was found that VOCs measurement by gas detector tubes in college can be used for the risk assessment and management of chemicals.
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Editorials
  • Takashi Tsuruda
    2015 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 151-156
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 10, 2015
    Advance online publication: September 08, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Most of workers in modern industries are graduates from universities. The reduction of frequency of industrial accidents will prevail as the number of educated workers increases in workplace. Among recent accidents, there are some accidents due to lack of basic knowledge of workers on the working environment. Loss prevention through education has been important target for Japanese government since Meiji era. Traditionally, police investigates industrial accidents for criminal process. In some areas, the social system related to the industrial accident reviewed its management system to lower the frequency of accidents. An accident case during an educational demonstration and its management system were reviewed. Safety must be the absolute priority and educators should demonstrate chemical safety concepts as well as the science topic.
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  • Jun Tobita
    2015 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 157-164
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 10, 2015
    Advance online publication: October 07, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Tokai region of Japan has experienced many disasters in the past and is also at risk of a Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake in the near future. As Japan's third largest metropolitan area with most important industrial agglomeration, a large-scale disaster in this region would have an enormous impact on domestic and international society. In addition to protecting human lives and averting risk, core universities in the region must continue to provide higher education and advanced research while securing research environments and achievements, and contributing to regional society. However, universities face risk factors during disasters because they are large-scale organizations with many students and faculty members, and also because they are densely populated, contain laboratory equipment and dangerous articles,and are active day and night. Furthermore, it is difficult to establish unified disaster measures in universities because departments are highly independent and tend to prioritize research and education result, and students and faculty members change every year. Considering such situation, this paper describes natural disaster response of universities based on a case study of Nagoya University by examining its disaster management from three perspectives: (1) systems, organizations, and regulations, (2) training, education, and awareness, and (3) buildings, equipment, and materials. As a result, it is indicated that safety and risk management play an important role in the large-scale organizations, and thus universities must construct logical frameworks for disaster response that correspond to their organizations, facilities, and risk situations. Agreement and awareness for disaster response strategy of the organization should be improved by repetition of disaster drills and preparation for disaster mitigation.
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  • Hitoshi Yamamoto
    2015 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 165-168
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 10, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The occupational safety and health act was revised and promulgated in 2014, and all companies that use chemicals are obliged to perform risk assessment of chemicals. Although the ministry of health, labor and welfare (MHLW) shows some examples of assessment methods, their methods emphasize the risk of chronic diseases caused by long-term exposure to toxic chemicals. So, we feel a sense of incongruity between our perception of risks in laboratory and MHLW's risks. As the risk assessment of laboratory is very important for safety and health management of laboratory, we have to establish a practical way of assessment in university laboratories. In this paper, the author discusses about the perception of risks in laboratory of researchers, high risk points in the laboratory based on the experimental accident, and the direction in risk assessment of university laboratories.
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  • Shizuaki Murata
    2015 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 169-173
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 10, 2015
    Advance online publication: October 04, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The modification on Industrial Safety and Health Act (June 2014) compulsorily requires to carry out risk control based on risk assessment on selected 640-kinds of commonly used hazardous chemicals before use. In a working group of the meeting covering safety, health and environment at 7-major national university Japan, development of a new risk management system on those chemicals has been discussed. On the process, we have focused on the risk assessment procedure encouraging academic laboratories. Published herein is an interim report on my personal opinion for this theme.
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  • Tsutomu Hamada
    2015 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 175-179
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 10, 2015
    Advance online publication: September 28, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Compulsory risk assessment for chemical substances will be legislated, but there are several challenges that must be met to attain widespread adoption. First of all, sufficient understanding of safety, which is the foundation of risk assessment, is not widespread in Japan. Japanese people tend to perceive safety as responding to immediate dangers and taking action towards the danger itself. We often treat these actions directed at immediate danger as being equivalent to absolute safety. This is far from the current international standard for safety understanding, which defines what safety is and what kind of conditions should be sought, and analyzes the structural scheme for safety. We cannot expect risk assessment to be properly implemented unless our understanding level for safety is improved. Furthermore, risk assessment is just a tool to evaluate the level of risk, and it is assumed that this information will be applied to management in some organized fashion. However, it is often supposed that just the implementation of risk assessment will directly result in prevention of work accidents and occupational disease. We lack understanding of utilization of information and the importance of management. This misunderstanding must be corrected before we can expect proper implementation of risk assessment.
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Topic & Report
  • Hotaka Kai, Masahito Ota, Takahiro Nakamichi, Miyuki Mori, Kakutetsu Y ...
    2015 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 181-188
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 10, 2015
    Advance online publication: October 04, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Acid bypochlous aqueous solution by electrolyzing a sodium chloride aqueous solution has a bactericidal effect. As bromic acid is the same type of halos salt as the sodium chloride, it is supposed that bromic acid aqueous solution by electrolyzing sodium bromide aqueous solution would also have a bactericidal effect, and its bactericidal effect would be higher than hypochlorous acid. In this study, electrolyzed water including bromic acid was produced by electrolysis reaction of sodium bromide solution in 3 rooms - 2 membranes electrolysis tank. Then, the relationship of bromic acid concentration and coulomb was indicated, and the bactericidal effect of electrolyzed water including bromic acid was examined. It showed that the concentration of bromic acid in electrolyzed water increase in proportion to coulomb. And sodium ionic transferences number from middle tank into cathodic tank was larger than bromic ionic transport number from the middle tank into the anodic tank. This indicated that there was a difference in the content of ions to carry electric charges. To compensate this difference in the content of ions, hydrogen ions and hydroxide ions were produced by electrolyzing water molecules near anion exchange membrane on the anode electrode, hydroxide ions would compensate the difference in the content of ions. As hydrogen ions transported in into the middle tank by passing through the membrane, the pH of bromic sodium solution in the middle tank indicated acidic. Bactericidal effect of hypochlorous acid and bromic acid was examined as a target E.coli, S.Aureus, P.aeruginosa,and B.subtilis. From the results of a bactericidal effect, it showed that even the lower substrate concentration of bromic acid than that of hypochlorous has a bactericidal effect. And also much lower substrate concentration of electrolyzing a sodium bromide aqueous solution by long- term storage possibly has sufficient bactericidal effect. This sufficient bactericidal effect would depend on the high hydrogen ion concentration in electrolyzed water.
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