Flour, sacks and a wet floor at 5 a.m.
You have joined a six-person independent bakery that supplies local cafés. The work starts at 5 a.m. Three staff unload and tip 25 kg sacks of flour into the mixer, then move trays in and out of ovens held at 240 °C. There is no local exhaust ventilation over the mixing area; a fine dust settles on surfaces and is brushed up dry at the end of the shift. The floor is mopped at the start of the morning while the ovens are being loaded, and the mop is left in a bucket in the walkway. One baker has told you she gets a tight chest and wheeze on working days that clears at weekends; she has not reported it to anyone. Weekend staff are two students who received no induction beyond being shown where the light switches are.
1. Identify the main hazards in this bakery and match each to the harm it could cause.
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Grouping by type keeps the list usable in an assessment:
| Hazard | Possible harm |
|---|---|
| Flour dust in the air from tipping and dry brushing | Respiratory sensitisation (baker's asthma), rhinitis, dermatitis; dust explosion risk in high concentrations |
| 25 kg sacks lifted and tipped, often repeatedly | Musculoskeletal injury to back, shoulders, wrists |
| Ovens at 240 °C, hot trays, open oven doors | Burns and scalds to hands, arms, face |
| Wet mopped floor left unmarked, mop and bucket in the walkway | Slips and falls, including onto hot surfaces |
| No induction for weekend students | Unrecognised hazards, wrong actions in an emergency |
| The baker's unreported symptoms | Untreated occupational asthma, which can become permanent |
Note that the last item is not an object at all - ill health is a hazard outcome too, and a worker reporting symptoms is a form of hazard report that the bakery has not yet heard.
2. The baker's chest tightness is the most serious finding. What should happen next, and what controls would reduce flour exposure?
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Treat it as a report of possible occupational ill health. The person should be referred for occupational health advice promptly, and her exposure reviewed - early removal from high exposure usually gives a much better outcome than waiting until the asthma is established. Report it through the firm's occupational disease arrangements where the criteria are met.
Controls, in hierarchy order:
- Eliminate/substitute: buy flour in smaller bags or use a silo/automated handling so no one tips 25 kg sacks by hand.
- Engineering: fit local exhaust ventilation at the tipping and mixing points, enclose transfers, and keep it maintained and tested - an unmaintained LEV is worse than none because people trust it.
- Safe system of work: damp or vacuum cleaning instead of dry brushing (dry brushing puts settled dust back into the air where it is breathed in).
- Administrative: induction and training covering dust, hot surfaces and slips; a health surveillance or questionnaire programme for flour-exposed staff.
- PPE last: suitable respiratory protection for specific short tasks, fitted and face-fit tested, plus gloves and aprons for dermatitis control.
Reasoning point: the dust is invisible for much of the shift, so the risk is underestimated. That is why engineering controls and cleaning method, not willpower, must carry the load.
3. Explain why mopping the floor at 5 a.m. and leaving the bucket in the walkway is a poor way to manage the slip risk, and how it should be changed.
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Wet mopping at the busiest point of the morning places a slip hazard exactly where people are carrying trays to hot ovens, which raises both the likelihood of a fall and the severity (a fall towards an open oven is not a simple slip). Leaving the mop and bucket in the walkway adds a trip hazard and shows the cleaning task was not planned around the production flow.
Better: change the sequence so floors are cleaned after the oven-loading rush or use a method that leaves less water; use a machine or microfibre system that dries quickly; put out wet floor signs even for a short period; and keep cleaning equipment stored out of the traffic route when not in use. Signage alone is not the answer - people stop seeing signs within minutes, and a sign does not stop a wet floor being slippery. The planning change removes the overlap between the hazard and the people.