A risk assessment of Phoenician glass blowers factory at Ta' Qali, Malta

Abstract

Glass blowing activity offers a variety of occupational health and safety hazards some of which have not yet been tackled properly. In Malta there are currently three main operators, all small enterprises working out of small premises at Ta' Qali Crafts Village, producing hand-made glass ornaments. All three glass-blowing concerns started operating well before most of the current legal obligations come into force. This does not exonerate them from the resulting obligations. This study concentrates on one of these enterprises as representative of the rest. The findings are symptomatic of what is perceived and accepted to be a widespread outdated attitude still rampant in Maltese-owned industries. Hazard identification and elimination, risk evaluation and reduction are given little if any attention. Systematic risk management envisioned by the law is non-existent. Workers' health and safety is left partly to chance and partly to the workers' presence of mind and initiative. A risk assessment is an important tool in any risk management system, which if driven and supported by the top management I owners of the enterprise, provides for the protection of workers' health and safety at the workplace to the mutual benefit of workers and the employers.