Occupational Health and Safety Act, 1993 (Act No. 85 of 1993)

Regulations

Regulations for Hazardous Chemical Agents, 2020

Annexures

Annexure 3 : Hazardous Chemical Agent Guidelines

Guidance on medical surveillance and biological monitoring

Applying occupational exposure limits

Occupational exposure limit - control limit: OEL-ML (Table 2 of Annexure 2)

Purchase

51	An OEL-ML is the maximum concentration of an airborne agent, averaged over a reference period, to which employees may be exposed by inhalation under any circumstances, and is specified together with the appropriate reference period in Table 2 of Annexure 2.

52.	Regulation 10(1) of the HCA Regulations, when read in conjunction with the Act, imposes a duty on the employer to take all reasonable precautions and to ensure that exposure is kept as far below an OEL-ML as is reasonably practicable.

53.

To comply with this duty, in the case of agents with an eight-hour reference period, employers should undertake a programme of monitoring, in accordance with regulation 6, so that they can show (if it is the case) that an OEL-ML is not exceeded. Such a monitoring programme needs not be undertaken if the assessment carried out in accordance with regulation 5 shows that the level of exposure is most unlikely ever to exceed an OELML. For agents assigned a ceiling limit, such value should never be exceeded.

54.

The assessment should also be used to determine the extent to which it is reasonably practicable to reduce exposure further below an OEL-ML, as required by regulation 10(1). In assessing reasonable practicability, the nature of the risk presented by the agent in question should be weighed against the cost and the effort involved in taking measures to reduce the risk. (See reasonably practicable as defined in the Act.)