Environmental Safety Assessment of a Printing Plant in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Background: The workplace environment impacts workers health, morale, productivity and engagement-both positively and negatively. The workplace environment in most of industry is unsafe and unhealthy. During the past ten years, the printing services have met a large development. Technological changes and the introduction of new work processes in the matter of printing have had a deep impact on labor, security and health. Objectives: to describe the environmental features of a printing press in Cairo. Methods: A descriptive observational study was carried out in a big printing press in Cairo, Egypt. Assessment of the work environment (prepress department, printing department, bookbinding section & office) was done using checklist modified from that of occupational safety team, 2012. Results: The majority of the study participants (79.5%) in the printing press were working in the printing and bookbinding department. which complains from poor ventilation, poor housekeeping, presence of spills & tripping hazards, lack of personal protective equipments, presence of noisy machines, significant manual handling & awkward body positions, lack of first aid kit & hazardous containers (ink containers in the printing department & adhesives in the bookbinding department) were left open. By comparing the departmental total score of the items in the environmental checklist; the prepress department were the highest in fulfilling the positive items with score (86.66%) and the printing & bookbinding department were the least with total score (40.09%). Conclusion: The study concluded that some areas of the printing press (printing & bookbinding department) need urgent attention to the work environment and recommend periodic environmental examination, good housekeeping, training, health education & provision of protective measures. Further work to confirm these findings in other study settings & population is also needed.

Occupational Hazards and Self-Reported Health Problems among Photocopy and Printing Workers at Assiut University, Egypt

“…Printing and photocopy workers being generally exposed to many hazardous materials which might lead to various health issues. (17,22) In referral to demographic characteristics of the studied workers in the present study, the mean age of studied workers was (mean± SD) 43.06 ± 8.59 (27.0-59.0), this result came to an agreement with Ibrahim et al, (13); Who informed that the mean age was (mean± SD) 42.65 ± 9.33.…”

Perception of printing workers regarding occupational health hazards and safety measures

“…Concerning the correlation occupational health hazards and safety measures, the results of this study found that a negative statistically significant correlation between total occupational hazards and total safety measures, this means when the protective measures are used in the workplace and the workers had training and follow the guidelines and rules for safety measures those will lead to the decline of occupational hazards that affect on workers' health. In similarity to the previous study done in Cairo by Ibrahim et al (2018) [18] who stated adequate preventive and control measures in the work environment are leading decrease work hazards also authors found wearing protective clothes, good ventilation and lighting in the printing shop were statistically significantly associated with a lower prevalence of occupational hazards. According to the results of this study, there were statistically significant differences in relationships between genders, age, and year of work experiences in relation to total injuries, chemical hazards subscale.…”