Plastic exposure to women in the workplace could lead to health risks

To make plastic parts, such as bumpers and dashboards, pellets are heated in huge injection molding machines. These machines sometimes eject sticky plastic that smokes and smoulders and that workers can breathe in.

Many of these chemicals have been shown to be endocrine disruptors and carcinogens in animals.

Jim Brophy, a retired Executive Director of the Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers (OHCOW) and lead author of the study is worried the chemicals used to make these plastics could be affecting the health of women who work in the plants and increasing their chance of getting breast cancer. Brophy wants the government to do more to protect workers and worries that the Ministry of Labour is not doing enough to minimize exposure.

 

Leon Genesove, the Ontario Ministry of Labour’s top doctor, says the Ministry is working with health and safety associations to assist employers “in eliminating hazards in the workplace, substituting with less hazardous chemicals if necessary. Implementing engineering controls, and assisting them with other control measures.”

Genesove cites a workplace safety blitz from October and November of 2012 where inspectors looked at dangerous conditions in the manufacturing sector.

 

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