• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.127-133
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• 2012

This paper shows survey result on safety management status of laboratories in Korea. In Korea, many studies and reports on laboratory safety have been published since the ministry of education, science and technology (MEST) enforced the Act on Establishing a Safe Environment of Laboratories (Lab Safety Act) in 2006. The MEST has surveyed status of safety management in institutions subject to Lab Safety Act in 2008 and 2010. According to the survey result, safety management status of universities and colleges has been improved on several factors such as establishment of safety manual and implementation of safety inspection; while the number of safety managers of universities and colleges have increased. However, the difficulties in performing duties of safety managers has increased because the number of exclusive safety managers has decreased. This paper identifies the similarities and differences between Occupational Safety and Health Act and Lab Safety Act on assignment and duties of safety managers; therefore, this paper suggests a standard to determine the number of safety managers and decide whether or not their duties should be exclusive. Besides current standard that is based on the number of researchers, the number of individual laboratories should be considered. The new method would be helpful to determine the number of exclusive safety managers because the amount of safety managers' duties generally do not depend on only the number of people who may be exposed to any risk but also the number of facilities that may be cause of any accident.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.99-108
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• 2020

Objectives: This study aimed to compare the regulatory systems for laboratory safety and health management between Korea and Germany and discuss the implications. Methods: Laboratory safety and health regulations for legal enforcement and relevant technical guidelines in Korea and Germany were reviewed. Results: Lab safety and health management is enforced by the Act on the Establishment of Safe Laboratory Environment in Korea. Most provisions focus on supervisory control, that is, the principal's liability is emphasized. In addition, there is a lack of laboratory-specific procedures for safety and health management in the act since it is stipulated that other relevant regulations apply to some technical contents. Non-compulsory technical guidelines for lab safety and health management are also provided by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) in order to enable researchers to follow safe procedures. There is no independent regulation for lab safety and health in Germany, and it is also governed by several regulations. The German Social Accident Insurance Institute provides technical guidelines on lab safety and health, and these contain more specific content to allow them to be followed more easily compared to the KOSHA guidelines. The most remarkable differences between the regulation of each country were contents of the risk assessment and specific protect measures from hazardous agents. Conclusions: Regulatory control is an essential way to prevent accidents, but it is more important to create an environment in which all stakeholders, including individual lab members, are allowed to participate actively in safety and health management activities.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.45-54
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• 2019

According to the Laboratory Safety Act, each laboratory in the field of science and technology must conduct safety inspections and diagnosis every year or every two years. At present, the relevant guidelines are not clear, so there is a high possibility that inspection and diagnosis will become ineffective. In the laboratory, there is a pre-risk factor analysis system for hazardous factors, but there are many difficulties in implementation due to lack of education and understanding of the researchers, excessive work, etc. For the analysis of the opinions of experts in the safety field using the Delphi technique, we analyzed the following items: 1. Consideration in applying the Lab Safety Act, 2. Consideration in Lab Safety inspection and diagnosis, and 3. Government policy necessary for Lab. safety. Through the investigation and analysis of the detailed items, we extracted for problems and alternatives in current laboratory safety diagnosis and current law.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.81-90
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• 2016

Research and development activities have been actively conducted at universities, research institutions and research laboratories which belong to corporations. Because of blooming research and development activities in various fields, safety accidents in the laboratories happen consistently. The government office established Act on the establishment of safe laboratory environment to decrease safety accident rates and make environment of laboratories better, and it is effective slowly. However, in the case of laboratory safety management of the laboratory where various research and development activities are carried out. So it is difficult to closely monitor them. Even though safety inspections and periodic inspections is regularly conducted, these are focused on facilities and environment. According to a study of Dea-deok science town safety council, accidents in laboratories of 73% have arisen out of careless actions. Therefore, it is important for researchers to know to potential harmful factors in research. there is necessary to make a system to prevent laboratory accidents. The purpose of this study is that the researchers discovered potential hazard factors in laboratories. For that, foreign laboratory safety management systems has applied to domestic laboratories. Four laboratories in targeted institution has been selected to apply the appropriate personal protection equipments, job safety assessment and standard operating procedures. And I found the limitations of the process according to the excavations harmful factors in the research process. To overcome these limitations, Suggest a laboratory safety management system. This study discovered current laboratory safety system limitations and provides alternatives so that effective safety management can be achieved.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.97-109
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• 2016

Objective: The aim of this study is to identify the domestic and foreign laboratory safety management system and to suggest domestic laboratory safety management policy priority. Background: Various types of accidents are occurred in research laboratories according to a variety of laboratory safety risks. However, there are only lists of incidents without any precise accident analysis. Method: We analyzed statistically the survey on current status of laboratory safety management of universities, research institutes, and industrial research institutions carried out by Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning in Korea. We also investigated laboratory safety management systems and safety organization carried out mainly in overseas countries such as USA, Japan, Switzerland and France. In addition, we analyze the UCLA College laboratory explosion occurred in the US in 2010. Results: More than 75 percent of 2015 domestic laboratory accidents were occurred in the field of operation management and chemistry research. Also, approximately 55% of accidents took place due to careless use mechanical instruments & dangerous chemicals. In addition, common difficulties of lab safety act applicable organizations are overlapping and comprehensive application of legal requirements. Conclusion: There is a need for laboratory safety professional organizations. Also, the high frequency of use of hazardous substances in the high-risk, such as the chemical field must be strengthened the laboratory safety management. In addition, it is needed to minimize the problems of the research organizations through close cooperation between related ministries and government support policy such as professional development program. Application: The result of this analysis might help to present a differentiated safety management policy and advanced safety management system in laboratory.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.61-70
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• 2022

In spite of lab safety act for over 10 years, over 100 safety accidents in the laboratory have been constantly occurring. The ideal safety management system is to prevent accidents by differential classifying and managing laboratory regulatory materials according to the risk level. In order to approach this system, in-depth interviews with safety managers were first conducted to identify the current status of safety management in domestic university laboratories. And then through comparative analysis of safety management systems in domestic and foreign laboratories, a new regulatory substance classification standard based on the analysis of the hazards and the classification of risk grades, and a safety management system are proposed. From this study, it will contribute to the creation of a safe laboratory environment by differential classification and management laboratory regulatory materials based on the risk level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.104-113
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• 2024

Unlike in general manufacturing process, safety management in laboratory-based research area is complicated because the latter generally involves trying untested methods or handling unusual substances in small amounts. Laboratory accidents in South Korea have recently shown an increasing trend. Unfortunately, statistics on such accidents are not officially published by any domestic public agencies. In this study, multivariate analysis was performed on the relationships between variables to develop effective strategies for preventing laboratory accidents. A Cross-Tabulation Analysis of accident-related factors in 179 accident cases revealed that the laboratory type, accident type, and unsafe-act type are all statistically significant, whereas the unsafe condition and management factors differ with the statistical criteria. Furthermore, the results of a Multiple-Correspondence Analysis showed that accidents can be divided largely into three groups having different accident causes and injury types; this confirms the necessity of different strategies to prevent accidents of each type. The findings also reveal differences between the distribution of accident types mentioned in the accident case collection books and actual reported cases. This suggests that an official statistical system administered by a public institution would be necessary for effective prevention of laboratory accidents.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.441-455
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• 2010

Researchers who work in science and engineering R&D laboratories are commonly exposed to a wide range of chemical, biological and physical hazards. They also may adopt ergonomically poor postures for long periods of time. These factors may increase the risk of adverse health outcomes in laboratory workers. Recently, there were several fatal accidents in the laboratories in universities and research institutes in Korea. Consequently, the 'Laboratory Safety Act' was enacted in 2006. However, there are concerns about the health risk associated with chronic exposures to hazards, as the management measures provided in this Act are very limited, focusing primarily on accident prevention and compensation for lab work-related accidents. In this article, the methods for assessing exposure to chemicals in laboratory environments are discussed. Also, epidemiological studies examining the association between laboratory exposure and health effects, including cancer and reproductive toxicity are extensively reviewed. Finally, the possible roles of environmental health professionals in this area are suggested, along with a list of critical research needs for properly assessing laboratory workers' exposure and risk.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.1-9
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• 2020

The Act on the Establishment of Laboratory Safety Environment was enacted in 2015 to prevent safety accidents occurring in laboratories. However, it is time for fundamental and comprehensive safety management measures since various systems for laboratory safety are operated at the same time. The purpose of this study is to propose effective improvement methods in terms of the safety management inspection system. The laboratory's safety management statutes were investigated and compared, and problems arising from differences in inspection systems were derived. Further, specific inspection items were compared separately from the facility aspect and the management aspect. The improvement method was proposed. As a result, although it was the same lab, it was managed by different tests at different times. There were differences in inspection items that focused on the structure and performance of chemical facilities, or on the management criteria such as storage of reagents and management of toxic materials. The problems and suggestions considered in this study are expected to help develop the safety management system for preventing laboratory accidents.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.23-29
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• 2017

As the Enforcement Ordinance of Environmental Policy Act was revised in 2013, Total Organic Carbon (TOC) was added as an indicative parameter for organic matter in Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Environmental Criteria. Under these imminent circumstances, a regulatory standard is needed to achieve the proposed TOC limitation control water quality from the STP (Sewage Treatment Plant). In this study, a electrolysis utilizing the electrochemical reaction was investigated in lab-scale experiments for the treatment of TOC in sewage effluent. TOC reduction by a electrolysis was investigated response surface methodology using the Box-Begnken methods were applied to the experimental results. A central composite design was used to investigate the effects of the independent variables of electrode space ($x_1$), current density ($x_2$) and electrolyte concentration ($x_3$) on the dependent variables removal efficiency of TOC (y). The optimal conditions for electrolysis were determined: electrode space, current density and electrolyte concentration were 50 mm, $10.3mA/cm^2$ and 0.1M, respectively. Statistical results showed the order of significance of the independent variables to be electrode space > current density > electrolyte concentration.