Categories: Small Business
August 23rd, 2012 2:34 pm ET -
Thomas Cunningham, PhD, and Garrett Burnett, MS, MBA
Running a small business and camping in the Great Smoky Mountains share a surprising parallel. Although the connection may not be obvious at first, consider the following:
The US National Park Service estimates that 1500 black bears live in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That’s 2 bears per square mile. Additionally, the Smokies welcome 9 million annual human visitors. Bears are dangerous to people (and vice versa), so the Park Service—acknowledging that bears can’t read and have only limited Internet access—has provided safety information for us humans:1
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Categories: Small Business
May 18th, 2012 9:30 am ET -
Raymond Sinclair, Ph.D.
U.S. businesses of the new millennium are starting smaller and staying smaller than in decades past. That’s the conclusion of a study reported in the March issue of Monthly Labor Review.
The study found that business size, as measured by number of employees, usually declines during economic recessions and increases during expansion years resulting in an overall upward trend. However, unlike previous decades, that trend did not persist during the 2000s when overall size declined slightly. That shift was mostly explained by a decrease in “birth size” of businesses. For example, between 2000 and 2007, the average size of establishments that were less than one year old declined from 7.3 to 5.3 employees while the size of establishments that were seven or more years old showed a much smaller decline from 22.8 to 22.2.
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Categories: Chemicals, Exposure, Small Business
February 10th, 2012 9:15 am ET -
Dede Montgomery
Even if you’re not particularly fashion conscious, it’s been pretty hard to miss hearing about the Brazilian Blowout smoothing solution over the past year. Imagining a 10% solution of methylene glycol/formaldehyde being applied, dried, and flat-ironed on hair in a salon is enough to make most industrial hygienists cringe. Until recently, comments about the same product from a fashion-conscious, non-industrial hygienist might have been, “I love the product,” or, “It really tames unmanageable hair.”
On January 30, 2012, the California Attorney General announced a settlement with the manufacturer of Brazilian Blowout products that requires the company to warn consumers and hair stylists that two of their most popular hair-smoothing products emit formaldehyde gas. The terms of the settlement require accurate disclosure in material safety data sheets and labels, distribution of precautionary use measures, and cessation of false advertising. Penalties of $600,000 were also imposed on the manufacturer.
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Categories: Exposure, Small Business
March 10th, 2009 3:25 pm ET -
Administrator
Approximately 365,000 people are employed in nail salons and other personal care services in the United States. The workforce is largely female (75%) with the industry employing a large number of minority workers (46%) specifically Asian immigrants (38%). These workers generally perform manicures over a workstation—or “nail table”—with the client’s hands resting on the table as they work. The nail table is, therefore, directly below the nail technicians’ breathing zone. Downdraft vented nail tables (VNTs) are modified to vent potential dust or chemical exposures away from the breathing zone before they cross it, thus theoretically reducing potential exposures.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is undertaking a unique research project to examine the effectiveness of different VNTs in removing potential exposures from the work area.
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Running a small business and camping in the Great Smoky Mountains share a surprising parallel. Although the connection may not be obvious at first, consider the following:
