Employee Health and Inks/additives

[ericheartsu]

We are dealing with some issues over at the shop, where our employee who mixes and makes our ink, is getting skin irritations. The past couple of months, it's just been generally irritated skin, and itchiness, but now it seems to be expanding to some other health issues.

Our ink room is in a seperate building, behind our main production warehouse. We use ink from all the standard plastisol manufacturers, but mainly use HSA/Discharge/WB from Matsui, CCI, Green Galaxy, Rutland and so on. We use Saati products for our all of our chemicals.

Our ink room has 12 ft ceilings, but it is a contained room with a window ac.

Ventilation isn't the best, but there is also constant airflow from the AC or with the door being open.

She wears Nitrile gloves all day.

Has anyone personally, or had staff that has had irritants like this from ink? or additives? We have one other staff member, who also has skin irritations, and he works on the production floor.

any ideas of what it could be, out of the millions of things it could be?!

[Maff]

I would think the cleaning chems are the harshest of all, but some people are just more susceptible to skin irritation then others. Does she have a history of eczema? Or other rashes?  If so it could be a loosing battle, constantly washing hands all day can irritate them.

Also, wearing gloves all day isn't necessarily a good thing either. Skin needs to breath!  Obviously it's a tough situation, but can you rotate her around the shop so she's not doing dealing with ink and chems all day?

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[ericheartsu]

I would think the cleaning chems are the harshest of all, but some people are just more susceptible to skin irritation then others. Does she have a history of eczema? Or other rashes?  If so it could be a loosing battle, constantly washing hands all day can irritate them.

Also, wearing gloves all day isn't necessarily a good thing either. Skin needs to breath!  Obviously it's a tough situation, but can you rotate her around the shop so she's not doing dealing with ink and chems all day?

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she is around the cleaning chems very little. only really at the end of the day. My guess is it's more something with a personal sensitivity to the additives, specifically the matsui fixers.

[Doug B]

  I had my daughter help out at a shop I worked at years ago and she was highly sensitive
to the chemicals in the parts washer. The only thing to do was to not let her near it.

  My advice to you is get her away from it fast! Otherwise you could be
setting yourself up for a workman's comp. or disability claim.

[cbjamel]

could be allergic to the gloves also. have seen that before.

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[Colin]

Have her wear a lab coat with long sleeves and change the type of gloves she uses.

Look up your MSDS sheets and list all those that say they can cause skin irritation - there will be many.

Catalog what has been used and how often.

Check to see if, with the long sleeves and new gloves, the skin irritation persists and develops in new areas.

I know personally, my skin/body does not like ZFS.  My fingers will feel odd after use.

[RICK STEFANICK]

It  could be a number of things not even related to the shop environment, inks ,chemicals etc. Skin iritation with the inks and chemicals we use today is not real common. I would inquire about her lotions, soaps, etc that she uses at home and start there. could be bed bug bites. I have seen it all man.

[Homer]

I had a terrible reaction in my nose from discharge agent, just by mixing it. I have to hold my breath or my nose gets sore and red like rudolph, hurts like a dickens too. I'm sure none of the stuff we breath in is good for you in anyway, but...people complain about the chemicals they touch then go to McDonalds for "food".....

[ericheartsu]

can anyone recommend a way to put an exhaust fan in a window for a short term solution? She'll only be in our current ink room for 2 months TOPS. so we don't want to invest in something heavy duty, when our new ink room is gonna be outfitted correctly.

[ZooCity]

can anyone recommend a way to put an exhaust fan in a window for a short term solution? She'll only be in our current ink room for 2 months TOPS. so we don't want to invest in something heavy duty, when our new ink room is gonna be outfitted correctly.

Ventilate is always a good move.  Fit a piece of ply to the window with foamboard insulation.  Cut a hole and throw an inline exhaust fan in there, duct it around as needed. 

[Rockers]

We are dealing with some issues over at the shop, where our employee who mixes and makes our ink, is getting skin irritations. The past couple of months, it's just been generally irritated skin, and itchiness, but now it seems to be expanding to some other health issues.

Our ink room is in a seperate building, behind our main production warehouse. We use ink from all the standard plastisol manufacturers, but mainly use HSA/Discharge/WB from Matsui, CCI, Green Galaxy, Rutland and so on. We use Saati products for our all of our chemicals.

Our ink room has 12 ft ceilings, but it is a contained room with a window ac.

Ventilation isn't the best, but there is also constant airflow from the AC or with the door being open.

She wears Nitrile gloves all day.

Has anyone personally, or had staff that has had irritants like this from ink? or additives? We have one other staff member, who also has skin irritations, and he works on the production floor.

any ideas of what it could be, out of the millions of things it could be?!

Might be a case of MCS-Multi Chemical Sensitivity.

[celtic]

Discharge agents are a definite thing that you don't want to breathe any in.
She should wear a respirator when mixing those. 
Also, where is her irritation?  Is it limited to her hands?
I agree that her hands need a break from wearing the gloves all day.
I worked for years, specializing in airbrush work and wore gloves for hours.
What helped me was to wear the thin cotton gloves (that photographers wear when touching photos)
under my latex gloves. That helped. Also, would change the cotton gloves when they got sweaty multiple
times a day.
hope this helps