Managing Noise Pollution in Mining Industry

This presentation discusses the negative effects of noise pollution on workers in the mining industry and the strategies that can be implemented to manage it effectively. It covers topics such as measuring noise exposure, legislative and regulatory requirements, the duty of care of employers, workers' compensation and injury management, and the role of managers, contractors, and the government. The presentation also emphasizes the importance of personal hearing protectors, information and training, and monitoring personal noise exposure.

Safety and Risk
Management
Presented By:

Introduction
 Noise pollution is referred as
disturbance sound that which can
led to hearing impairment, work
inefficiency, distractions, and/or
accidents.
 With major mines in Australia
being constructed around
populated area, they have
significant impact on the health
concerns of the public due to the
increase in noise concerns and
loss of hearing of young age
population (Morrice and
Colagiuri, 2013).

Effect of Occupational Noise Pollution on
Workers
 Noise is characterized to have many negative effects on workers,
this includes;
 Poor performance rate due to a lowering of concentration,
 Increased fatigue due to the long exposure of noise,
 Work interference due to the poor communication,
 And, increase in health cases of impaired hearing (Pokhrel &
Dubey, 2013).

Measuring Noise Exposure
 Effective determination of noise exposure can be mainly achieved
through the occupational noise management procedure in AS/NZS
1269.1,
 Generally, measuring noise exposure is done to determine
approaches of handling noise which could led to health issues of
workers and the public (Dontala, Reddy, & Vadde, 2015).
 In order to be compliance with the specified regulations, personal
hearing protectors which workers may be wearing during the
calculation of the noise should not be taken into consideration.

Action Level for Noise
 Normally, when people are exposed to determined noise there are
various actions that should be taken.
 The average noise is determined to about 85 dB(A) where the
maximum peak noise is about 140 dB(lin) (Morrice and Colagiuri,
2013).
 For an average noise, the maximum working hours a day are
approximately 8 hours i.e. the worker’s exposure should remain at
(LAeq,8h).
 With this guides, any company or mining management is expected
to adopt strategies of limiting noise exposure below the average
limit.

Legislative and Regulatory Requirements
 One of the requirement of the Mine Safety and Inspection Regulation is
the general application of engineering procedures to curb hazardous
issues.
 However, in the event where the elimination of noise is impartibly
impossible, safety gears should be applied (Shen, Muduli, & Barve,
2015).
 Safety gears are not considered as possible solutions to noise while they
are just for short period of time before engineering solution are
identified in minimizing noise in the mining grounds.

Duty of care
 Under the Mines Safety and Inspection Act 1994, It should a duty care of
the employer to provide a healthy and safe working environment for all
the workers.
 In respect to our main topic, some of the measurement include minimal
noise exposure and provision of safety gears.
 Under section 12 of the Act, employers also have responsibility of
ensuring that they are also safe from any hazardous exposure.
 All this applications should be reviewed and accepted by the safety
committee (Shen et al., 2015).

Workers’ Compensation and Injury
Management Act 1981
 Employers must have a planned specification of how they can be
able to compensate their employees in the event of any undesired
incident (Pokhrel & Dubey, 2013).
 According to the act, it’s the responsibility of the employer to
also insure the employee against all possible harm that may arise
in the nature of their daily work.

Effectiveness of Control Measures
 The effectiveness of the control noise measures can be considered
as very poor where most mines have continued to operate
population settlements.
 Moolarben Coal, located 45 km north-east of Mudgee, is good
example of the poor control measures where despite the complaints
of community member noise disturbance still no possible actions
seem to be taken (Brueckner, Durey, Pforr, & Mayes, 2014).
 On the same note, if people living 45 km away from the site are
affected, then it means workers in the site significantly affected.

Continuation
 The issue of mining companies working in same area is also
another issue that shown failure in the control of noise from both
the workers and the entire Australian public. An example of a
such scenario is also seen at Moolarben coal.
 On the other hand, Australia and New Zealand are one of highest
compensating countries which also shows that the law
enforcement has played a significant role in minimizing noise
effects.

Managing Noise
 The main action plan in managing noise is minimizing its effects as low as
possible even if its below the average limit.
 The determination of noise seriousness is carried through the investigation of
operational and technical feasibility (Nemerow, Agardy, & Salvato, 2009).
 If both variable indicate to be feasible, then the evaluation of cost should
undertaken to also analyze the feasibility aspect.
 Some of the cost-effectiveness measure that are normally carried out before
strategic solution is provided include shielding or isolation.

Role of Managers and Contractors
 It’s the general duty of mine managements and contractors to
identify; all the possible noise characteristics in the site,
 Suitable materials and mining technique with minimum noise
issues,
 Strategies of isolating major possible noise sources,
 Implementation of new engineering designs to reduce noise
challenges (Brueckner et al., 2014).
 Programs that will help to assess noise impact in correlation to
the already existing noise.
 Measures of dealing with unexpected outcome of events in
controlling noise pollution.

Role of the Government
 As per the legal aspect, the government has huge role to play in
dealing noise pollution in mining industry.
 One of the major task should be the review of the Mine Safety and
Inspection Regulation Act since it seems to have major challenges in
the control of noise issue.
 According to the continuous challenge in noise control, hierarchical
structure of control measure should be created making every
individual responsible in the control of noise pollution (Rossi-Santos,
2014).

Reduction of Noise that Exceeds the Action
Level
 One of the most effective ways of reducing noise is through use of
engineering techniques outlined in the AS/NZS 1269.2 Occupational
noise management –Noise control management.
 The other approach is the minimisation of the employee work time
schedule in a day.
 Noise protectors should be a mandatory requirement that should be
implemented in all sites that expose employees to noise pollution
(Nemerow, Agardy, & Salvato, 2009).

Personal Hearing Protectors
 Personal hearing protectors
should readily provided especially
in the event of failure in all
strategies of controlling noise.
 The comfort of the PPE’s should
be also a consideration.
 The aspect of monitoring wearing
of the PPE’s should be a priority
factor cause removal of the
protection for one minute can
disqualify the entire protection
activity.

Information and Training
 The training activity majorly involves every possible person
likely to affected with the noise effect.
 Some of the major information that should be acknowledged
during the training include;
 Possible health consequences due to the noise exposure,
 Application and selection of the right safety gears,
 The relationship between the noise exposure and time limit,
 How to identify noise sources

Continuation
 How to deal with noisy equipment’s,
 Measures one can use to reduce noise
 Duty care for the employees and the community in general
 Some of the possible disciplinary actions which can carried out in
the employees and employers lack to meet what is expected of
them (Rajagopalan,2015).
 Finally, the training should recurrent application and each
training recording should be kept at minimum of 2 years.

Role of Workers
 Employees are considered to have a very vital role to play in the
control of noise pollution in mine sites.
 Some of the main roles include; education other community
members on the danger of noise exposure from the mining site,
 Operating daily activities in safely manner and lowest practicable
noise,
 During the daily activities, employees should at least make sure
they can hear warning signs,
 And always to make sure to make a good use of the use PPE’s at
all times (Mahdevari, Shahriar, & Esfahanipour, 2014).

Continuation
 Reporting on incidents which might be endangering their health
or other people,
 Cooperating with the management in eliminating noise in the
mine sites,
 Finally, always making sure they have attended all training
meeting and seminars.

Monitoring Personal Noise Exposure
 Monitoring of the noise exposure is one of the critical elements that are
very important in managing noise,
 Generally, through the monitoring process, the effectiveness of the
noise control measures can be easily assessed (Onder, Onder, & Mutlu,
2012).
 When carrying out the procedures its advisable to use the recommended
approaches approved by the noise officers an example is the use of
noise dosimeter.

Conclusion
 In summary, each responsible individual should make sure that
activities involving noise report are efficiently carried out and
that they are accordance to the specification requirements of the
noise officer (Mahdevari, Shahriar, & Esfahanipour, 2014).
 The aspect of noise pollution in mining areas should also be
reviewed especially in the amendments of the safety and
regulatory Acts.

References
 Brueckner, M., Durey, A., Pforr, C., & Mayes, R. (2014). The civic
virtue of developmentalism: on the mining industry's political licence to
develop Western Australia. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal,
32(4), 315-326.
 Dontala, S. P., Reddy, T. B., & Vadde, R. (2015). Environmental aspects
and impacts its mitigation measures of corporate coal mining. Procedia
Earth and Planetary Science, 11, 2-7.
 Mahdevari, S., Shahriar, K., & Esfahanipour, A. (2014). Human health
and safety risks management in underground coal mines using fuzzy
TOPSIS. Science of the Total Environment, 488, 85-99.
 Morrice, E. and Colagiuri, R. (2013). Coal mining, social injustice and
health: A universal conflict of power and priorities. Health & Place, 19,
pp.74-79.

Continuation
 Nemerow, N. L., Agardy, F. J., & Salvato, J. A. (2009).
Environmental engineering: environmental health and safety for
municipal infrastructure, land use and planning, and industry (Vol.
3). John Wiley & Sons.
 Onder, M., Onder, S., & Mutlu, A. (2012). Determination of noise
induced hearing loss in mining: an application of hierarchical
loglinear modelling. Environmental monitoring and assessment,
184(4), 2443-2451.
 Pokhrel, L. R., & Dubey, B. (2013). Global scenarios of metal
mining, environmental repercussions, public policies, and
sustainability: A review. Critical reviews in environmental science
and technology, 43(21), 2352-2388.

Continuation
 Rajagopalan, R. (2015). Environmental studies: from crisis to cure
(No. Ed. 3). Oxford University Press.
 Rossi-Santos, M. R. (2014). Oil industry and noise pollution in the
humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) soundscape ecology of
the southwestern Atlantic breeding ground. Journal of Coastal
Research, 31(1), 184-195.
 Shen, L., Muduli, K., & Barve, A. (2015). Developing a sustainable
development framework in the context of mining industries: AHP
approach. Resources Policy, 46, 15-26.