Occupational health hazards among the employees engaged in laundry sectors
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Date
2021-02
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
Laundry has wide-ranged working operations with frequent risks differ both in type and intensity. The laundry workers are often exposed to various conditions leading to chemical biological and ergonomic hazards. These hazardous conditions harm their health and well beings. So, it is necessary to prevent occupational accidents and ill health caused by harmful factors in the workplace. Keeping this in view, the study was designed to understand the actual working conditions prevailing in laundry sector with the following objectives: to assess various tasks involved in laundry i.e. collection of clothes, rinsing, brushing, squeezing, ironing, folding etc., to identify perceptions of respondents' working environment and their working experience, to identify physical demands, perceived discomfort, complexity of task and fatigue during laundry work. Evaluation of physiological cost of work, different occupational health hazards and posture adopted by laundry workers. Besides this, current status of the use of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) by laundry worker and appropriate preventive measures to mitigate occupational health hazards. Respondents were chosen from two district U. S. Nagar and Nainital of Uttarakhand State. Purposive and random sampling were used for data collection. A total of 120 respondents were taken for the study purpose. Descriptive cum experimental methods were used for data collection. For descriptive method questionnaire, checklist and subjective scales were used. Experimental study included Total Cardiac Cost of Work,VO2 Max, anthropometric data, grip strength and goniometric analysis of posture. Further observational method - RULA (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment), REBA (Rapid Entire Body Assessment), LUBA (Postural Loading on the Upper Body Assessment), WERA (Working Ergonomic Risk Assessment), Job Strain Index, Rodgers Muscle Fatigue Analysis were also used for the study. Suitable statistical analysis was done. Results revealed that rinsing was found to be most strenuous activity followed by ironing and brushing amongst all the laundry activities. Collection of clothes to and fro to the place of washing was also found to be heavy and tiring. The respondents were facing problems during rinsing because of prolonged bending in conventional method, they also faced problems during ironing as this activity involved a lot of standing. During the collection of clothes, they also faced fatigue. On the whole washing and ironing activities created many negative impacts on laundry workers. Respondents were facing back pain, joints pain, itching and irritation in skin mainly. Environmental conditions and harmful laundry material aggregated this negative impact on the health of the respondents. So for this, some ergonomic solutions were given to laundry workers. Hand washer was suggested for rinsing washed clothes and thus avoiding prolonged bending. This washer will also provide them ease in rinsing activity. An adjustable chair was designed thorough Auto CAD to avoid prolonged standing and joints pain for ironing activity. Trolley was also suggested to reduce extra movements for carrying the clothes by hand or bucket. An awareness training was conducted to impart them knowledge of manual handling of tools, goods working posture, resting time periods during work to help them to avoid risk factors and occupational health hazards.