School of Life Sciences
Health, Safety and Environment Group
JMS 3B11
th
Tuesday 25 October 2011
9 – 11am
Ref HSE No 18
1. Apologies for Absence
Marion Richards
Steve Pearce
2. Acceptance of Minutes from the Previous Meeting
Minutes accepted
3. Matters Arising from the Previous Meeting
• Waste traps will be completed with the new round of refurbishments.
• Professor Pearl needs to remind Professor Carr that he will be responsible for the gamma cell
irradiator now Professor Lehmann has left.
4. Safety Information and Reports
(a) University Safety Committee
• Geoff Ward reported that Health and Safety officers were now monitoring Health and Safety in
schools.
• The standard risk assessment template is still being actioned
• Standard role descriptions for people carrying out safety roles have been done
st
• The new Director of Health & Safety for the University, Marion Richards began on the 1
September 2011.
• The University Health & Safety committee has been reconstituted to include two head’s of school,
Professor Laurence Pearl and Professor Peter Aggleton.
• A redrafted Health & Safety policy is to be put before the next committee.
(b) Radiation Protection Sub-Committee
Nothing to report.
(c) School Safety Advisor
• The Lifesciences safety plan 2011/12 has been submitted to VCEG as part of the Schools annual
strategic plan.
• An audit of the previous years performance against action plan was submitted and accepted by
the committee. It was felt that good progress had been made against all targets
• The new approach to safety inspections involving weekly detailed unannounced inspections has
been successful as repeat inspections of some of the more problematic areas have shown
significant improvements. The inspections continue as a mechanism to engage with the workers
and to advise and educate workers of the standards that we aim to achieve.
In many laboratories hazardous chemicals are not properly stored and overloaded storage
facilities is widespread. In some groups there is a general lack of attention to the basics of lab
housekeeping such as the efficient disposal of waste. The next round of inspections will focus on
risk assessment paperwork and COSHH documentation which was not scrutinised last time.
Incident reporting: There have been 13 reported incidents since the last meeting of this group.
Four of these involved eye contamination that would have been avoided by the use of safety
glasses. Four involved handling injuries, which may have been avoided if protective gloves were
used.
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Action: The health and safety committee agreed that Dr Steve Pearce would conduct a
mini survey on use of phenol and acrylamide.
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): The current science school policy states that “laboratory
coats should be worn at all times when working in a laboratory…” and safety glasses : “Must be
worn at all times in all chemistry and biological laboratories …”
The researchers including lab leaders do not generally support the existing policy. A new policy
which is relevant and acceptable to researchers, is much more likely to be implemented if it is
drafted by the head of research (with advice from the safety office). New guidance notes on PPE
will be created from any new policy by the school safety advisor.
The committee agreed that if certain aspects of PPE are not going to be worn then the lab head
needs to provide justification and accept responsibility if an incident occurs due to someone not
wearing appropriate PPE.
• Waste: New procedures for disposal of level 1 biological waste are dramatically reducing the use
of autoclaves along with the large energy and technical staff handling requirements.
The committee noted that the disposal of waste for the new building needs to be thought about.
• Training: Inductions. All staff and PG inductions that are notified to Steve Pearce by the school
office have been carried out. There is a reliance on the school office to provide information of
all new staff requiring inductions, a more formal process of notification would be helpful.
Graham Frost continues to do an excellent job in providing this training for Genome centre staff
and students.
Action: Sara Hinchliffe to sort out the inducting of new staff and inform Steve Pearce of all
health and safety talks that are required.
• Safety Advisor Training: Progress on the NEBOSH National General Certificate by distance
learning should be completed during 2012. Steve Pearce also plans to take a biological safetytraining course in 2012.
• Biological Safety: The annual review of the GM projects has been completed with updated
documents forwarded to the safety office. These will continue to be updated on a rolling basis
throughout the year. The recent inspection by the HSE biological inspector highlighted a range
of issues including the poor use of PPE and poor laboratory housekeeping. The perennial issue
of controlled access to hazardous research areas and the demarcation of research areas for
different levels of containment has been a challenge in our current buildings. A plan for
implementing access control to key areas has now been agreed and will be implemented by mid
November.
(d) Environment Report
Projects in 2010-11
• Freezer review
• The inventory of ultra-low temperature freezers to include data on energy efficiency and
history has now been completed. All freezers are now being labelled with a summary of
these data.
• A programme of defrosting and rationalising low temperature storage is ongoing. Dr
Martyn Stenning worked with Patrick Pica to acquire, through Salix, £15,000 to purchase
3 new 570 litre HEF green minus 80 Celsius freezers to replace 6 (smaller) inefficient
ones. Electricity cost saving to Life Sciences is c. £3000 pa, plus potential greater
reliability.
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The school has 10 freezers that are about 10 years old, three of which have developed
problems in last 4 weeks. Human tissue freezer is unreliable (15 years old), maybe need
a new one (c. £5000).
Dr Teresa Knapp, Andy White and Martyn Stenning have initiated a new standard
operating procedure for low temperature freezer preventative maintenance and recording
of actions.
Dr Martyn Stenning has encouraged PIs to include new freezers on their research grant
applications.
Peter Reed has helped with efficiency measurements and continues to install the
monitoring system (alarm phone and web monitor), as required and carries out regular
checks on freezer and alarm function.
All the above is ongoing and will save a huge amount in service contracts.
Autoclaves
Work by Steve Pearce and the safety office, on reviewing our waste practices, has
allowed a reduction in the very expensive use of autoclaves.
Recycling
‘Labwaste’, our certified chemical waste disposal company, recycle much of Life
Science’s waste. They collect and granulate Fisher tip boxes and recycle our polystyrene
boxes. Also, as the vast majority of our chemical waste is solvent based, and has a high
calorific value; it is blended to a specification and used as alternative fuel for cement kilns
and/or power stations. This recycling enables the company to continue to maintain
reasonable prices.
Our waste soil (up to a ton per month), from glass house experiments, is mixed with other
compost and used on the University flower beds.
Rachael Adari (Estates) continues to arrange the recycling of metals, timber electrical,
refrigeration equipment, plastics, some glass, paper, batteries and cardboard.
Projects 2011-12
• Carbon Footprint
• SALIX – Martyn Stenning and Patrick pica are looking into provision of more efficient
glass house lighting, LEDs have a longer life, give better control and may use less
electricity.
• Our 3 large controlled environment cabinets are inefficient and over 30 years old. Options
to replace these are being looked at.
• Life sciences has too many fridges and minus 20 freezers (17 in 3C6 and few people
working there). Martyn Stenning will compile an inventory of all refrigerators with a view
to rationalising and reducing the numbers. I intend to measure energy consumption from
these and produce an energy/cost/space saving programme.
• EAUC The Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges
• “Our vision is a university, college and learning and skills sector where the
principles and values of environmental, economic and social sustainability are
embedded.
• Our mission (is to) lead, inspire and equip Members and stakeholders with a shared
vision, knowledge and the tools they need to embed sustainability within curriculum and
operations.”
• Martyn Stenning is now a member of this group and intend to liaise with a Student Union
Environmental Champion with in Life Sciences to take the programme forward with the
help of the EAUC workbook.
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Martyn Stenning will continue to make progress in improving the working environment in
the Old Ancillary Building using donated funding and matched funding from gift-aid and
estates
(d) Biological Safety Committee
Nothing to report
(f) Human Tissue Committee
• The human tissue licence has been paid.
• The quality manual is underway
• There will be an audit in November
• The committee agreed that the Human Tissue Committee will now only report to the
Management Committee
7. Accidents and Incidents (incl fire drill report)
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• Fire drills were carried out in the JMS, Genome and CRPC buildings, all went well and the fire
marshall system worked well.
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• The committee agreed that it would be less confusion to building users to evacuate the entire
building rather than the current phased fire evacuation system.
Action : GW to liaise with Chubb to change the addressable system)
8. Any Other Business
Smoking
• Sara Hinchliffe proposed a local arrangement for smoking outside the building.
Action : to have bins replaced with no smoking signs.
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