Safety expo to test the limits
New alcohol testing technology comes to Zululand industries.
WITH safety playing a crucial role in Zululand’s industries, the upcoming local Health and Safety EXPO will tackle injury prevention.
The event, to be held on 3 July, will showcase a range of latest products, technologies and trends to help companies evade accidents and fatalities on work sites.
Among the innovative products will be a new alcohol testing device proven to work three times faster than the standard breathalyser.
Recently developed for an Mpumalanga colliery, the electronic breath alcohol detector is more sensitive and provides quicker readings to accelerate the long daily procedure of checking large volumes of employees entering industrial sites.
‘The Occupational Health and Safety Act specifies a zero tolerance approach to alcohol in the workplace, but it is up to companies to enforce this within their own organisations,’ said ALCO-Safe Director Rhys Evans.
‘It is particularly important in industries such as mining, manufacturing and construction – prominent sectors in Zululand – where workers are dealing with dangerous chemicals, heavy machinery or equipment that requires a high level of concentration.
‘However, many traditional breathalysers are slow, cumbersome and intrusive for everyday testing on large volumes of people.’
For this reason, Evans said the product was designed with an electro-chemical fuel cell to create a chemical reaction and ensure greater accuracy compared to other methods.
‘It even reacts to other chemicals such as acetone in a diabetic’s breath and menthol, delivering false positives that could result in false accusations.’
‘This new technology is also simple to use and robust.’
