History

Our Leadership Team

Newsletter Archive

Have You Heard? The New 85-Decibel Noise Exposure Limit

Beginning July 1, 2007, the 8hr noise exposure threshold in Regulation 851 of the Ontario Health and Safety Act respecting Industrial Establishments will be reduced from 90dBA to 85dBA.

Do you know what noise levels your employees are being exposed to? As General Manager of Workplace Medical Corp’s mobile hearing division, and with nearly 20 years of industry experience, I know that many companies cannot properly answer that question.

Hopefully, Regulation 851 will prompt those who don’t know their noise levels to find out. I, and many other hearing conservation professionals, have long promoted the idea that reducing the noise exposure threshold will help to reduce or eliminate Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) in Ontario workers.

In announcing the new regulation, the Government of Ontario noted that NIHL has led to an estimated $100 million in compensation costs being paid out by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) over the past decade. In the United States, NIHL is the #1 health claim based on number of claimants.

Reducing the noise exposure threshold to 85dBA brings Ontario in-line with international standards. We have long promoted to our mobile hearing testing clients to implement hearing conservation programs using the 85dBA threshold.

The details

Allowance has been made for the 85dBA threshold to be a time-weighted average (TWA) over an 8hr period. To determine the TWA, a continuous sound level measurement is taken over a period of time and the cumulative total is divided into 8hrs to determine equivalent sound level.

Typically, the measurement period is 8hrs, but it may be longer or shorter (i.e. if the employee works a 12hr shift). Furthermore, as the measurements are continuous, they also take into account all of the worker’s off-duty activities such as lunch-breaks.

The Regulation also uses a “3dB exchange rate”. This means that the allowable exposure time must decrease by half for each 3dB increase in noise level.

Ontario’s new 85dBA threshold and 3dB exchange rate result in the following table:

What it means for you.

For companies that already have a hearing conservation program, it means that you may now need to include more areas and workers in the program.

For companies that do not have a hearing conservation program, it means you may now need to consider it.

For all companies, it means you should have a renewed awareness of hearing conservation and updated noise level readings.

Our rule of thumb is that if your employees are wearing hearing protection, they should also be part of a comprehensive Hearing Conservation Program (HCP) that includes: noise surveys, education, hearing protection and regular hearing tests.

This year is our 30th anniversary providing hearing conservation programs to Ontario companies. Let us put our 30 years of experience into helping your organization develop and implement a Hearing Conservation Program that will ensure full compliance with the new regulations and reduce or eliminate noise induced hearing loss in your valued workers.

For more information on the new legislation, please see the following links:

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2007/02/c2578.html

http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/DBLaws/Source/Regs/English/2006/R06565_e.htm

Len Lyons, General Manager WMC Mobile Hearing Testing Len.Lyons@Workplacemedical.com
www.workplacmedical.com