VANCOUVER — A WorkSafe BC report written just weeks before the devastating fire at a sawmill in northern B.C. says dust levels in the facility's basement were more than twice the acceptable level for workers' health.

Low level falls are one of the major causes of fall-related injuries among workers, according to statistics. Most prevention strategies against slips, trips and falls are just common sense yet, these hazards remain in many workplaces. Stop slips and trips before they stop you.

When workplace accidents or incidents occur, employers perform investigations to determine the root causes and to prevent these events from happening again. They want to determine if, within their safety managed system, all issues with the potential to cause accidents or incidents have been properly addressed.

I believe many employers overlook a very important factor in their investigations: “situational awareness”.

Companies that use chemicals and generate chemical wastes — called generators — are responsible for these potentially hazardous substances for their entire lifecycle, from the time the chemicals are accepted into inventory or generated by the mining/manufacturing process through destruction. Waste processing companies play a key role in the lifecycle process by accepting the material and recycling, reprocessing, landfilling or incinerating the waste and certifying its disposal.