Cadmium Awareness for Construction Online

Overview

Who Should take this course?

This Cadmium Awareness for Constuction course provides a general awareness of the risks and the regulatory requirements for protecting employees who work with substances and materials that contain cadmium, as required by OSHA.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, estimates that approximately 300,000 workers are exposed to cadmium each year In the United States. Worker exposure can occur in all industry sectors, but mostly in manufacturing, construction, and recycling.

Cadmium and its compounds are highly toxic and exposure to cadmium is known to cause cancer. Cadmium targets the body’s cardiovascular, renal, gastrointestinal, neurological, reproductive, and respiratory systems.

Exposure to cadmium can occur during construction tasks such as wrecking, demolition, or salvage of structures, using cadmium-containing paints, cutting or brazing, burning, grinding or welding on surfaces painted with cadmium-containing paints, construction, alteration, repair, maintenance, and renovation work on structures or substrates that contain cadmium, welding or cutting cadmium-plated steel, or brazing or welding with cadmium alloys, installing products containing cadmium, electrical grounding with cadmium welding and in electrical work using cadmium-coated conduit, maintaining or retrofitting cadmium-coated equipment, and transporting, disposing, storing or containing cadmium or materials containing cadmium on the site of construction activities.

Objectives

The objective of this Cadmium Awareness for Constuction course is to provide a general awareness of the risks and the regulatory requirements for protecting employees who work with substances and materials that contain cadmium, as required by OSHA.

The course will also introduce students to the Occupational Safety and Health Regulations for Cadmium in Construction, Subpart Z, Toxic and Hazardous Substances - 29 CFR 1926.1127.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Explain what cadmium is;
• Describe where construction workers may encounter cadmium;
• Understand the definitions and the hazards associated with cadmium and exposure to it;
• Describe sources of non-occupational exposure to cadmium;
• Describe the health effects of cadmium exposure;
• Understand the essentials of OSHA’s Cadmium Standard for Construction; and
• Identify and describe OSHA methods of compliance to prevent cadmium exposure.

Exams

This course has one final exam based upon the material in the 3 course sections.

The exam consists of 10 questions selected at random from a larger pool of questions. A score of 70% or better is required to pass each exam. Students who do not pass the exam the first time may retake it as many times as necessary in order to pass.

Training Requirements

Each employee covered by the Cadmium Construction Standard must be trained to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of at least the following:

• The health hazards associated with cadmium exposure, with special attention to the cadmium safety data sheet;
• The quantity, location, manner of use, release, and storage of cadmium in the workplace and the specific operations that could result in exposure to cadmium, especially exposures above the permissible exposure limit;
• The engineering controls and work practices associated with the employee’s job assignment;
• The purpose, proper selection, fitting, and proper use and limitations of respirators and protective clothing;
• The measures employees can take to protect themselves from exposure to cadmium, including modification of such habits as smoking and personal hygiene, and specific procedures the employer has implemented to protect employees, such as work practices, emergency procedures, and the provision of personal protective equipment;
• The purpose and a description of the medical surveillance program required by the Cadmium Standard;
• The contents of the Standard and its appendices; and
• The employee’s rights of access to records.

Additionally, workers must receive training, when required by OSHA standards, on the specific hazards of their job. Training Providers should be used to ensure credibility and augment a company’s training program. Therefore, in addition to the training provided by an outside party, a student should receive site-specific training supplied by their employer. This training should target the company’s unique approach to hazard prevention, including the use of site-specific equipment, health and safety policies, and emergency procedures. As a rule, this company-specific training should be well documented.

Mobile version

This course is available in HTML5, so it works in the browser on your smartphone or tablet. It only needs the most recent version of your device's web browser.

Tablets work much better than smartphones, simply due to their screen size. The newer the device, the better the result. The course will not work on the first generation iPad, nor older Android tablets.

Frequently asked questions