Occupational health and safety cases in the New Zealand District Court

Occupational health and safety (OHS) practitioners need to understand prosecutions that have been before the District Court if they are to provide informed guidance about compliance with the New Zealand (NZ) Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) to “persons having control of a business or undertaking” (PCBUs). However, if they cannot access academic databases, they may need to rely on individual reports of a few cases but may not have the time or resources to develop their own database. Those who are studying for a tertiary level qualification may also lack the time to find and catalogue more than a few cases. This short article reports on the first stage of the development and analysis of a dataset of prosecutions under NZ OHS legislation. We describe our data sources and a high-level analysis of the dataset and issues to be resolved before proceeding with further data analysis. This work also forms part of research into “grey literature” and its use in practice by OHS practitioners and professionals. We conclude by showing the disparity between prosecutions and deaths due to occupational disease and trauma (leading to an area for further research) and loop back to one of the origins for this research: the meaning of a safe system of work.

The European DISCO project: deep geological disposal of modern spent nuclear fuel

Direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in a deep-mined geological repository is foreseen in various countries. Several decades of research (incl. various European projects such as SFS, NF-PRO, MICADO, REDUPP and FIRST-Nuclides) have shown that SNF shows a number of favourable properties as a waste form. Based on this background, the scientific collaborative DISCO project (2017–2021) aims to improve the understanding of the scientific basis of the safety cases for SNF under repository conditions – specifically for modern fuels. It comprises 16 project partners from eight EU countries consisting of large research institutions and small and medium enterprises (SME's), as well as an end-user group. It is supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation with about 4 million euro (EU contribution). The project concept and implementation were initiated via the Exchange Forum of the Implementation of Geological Disposal – Technology Platform (IGD-TP) based on discussions among various actors, namely waste management organisations and the research community. The specific scientific issue of the DISCO project is whether the kinetics of the SNF dissolution process are affected by the composition and characteristics of the SNF itself, with a focus on modern Cr-doped and mixed oxide (MOX) fuels, which have been developed in recent years. The effect of dopants in the fuel matrix with regard to redox reactivity of the irradiated fuel needs to be evaluated, since this may affect the dissolution behaviour of and radionuclide release from these modern fuels. The overall objectives of the DISCO project are (1) to enhance our understanding of SNF matrix dissolution under conditions representative of failed containers in reducing repository environments and (2) to assess whether novel types of fuel (MOX, doped fuels) behave in a similar manner to conventional fuels. Experimental and modelling tasks have been defined to achieve the project objectives. The expected knowledge gain is essential for waste management organisations and will provide new insights into factors affecting their safety cases as fuel systems have evolved.

Communication, information, and education (CIE) on food safety issues in Kalimojosari Village, Pekalongan

Food safety issues in Indonesia are still a common concern. Lack of knowledge causes the number of food safety cases is increasing, such as snack poisoning and diarrhea. This community service was carried out to form the PKK Food Safety Cadre in Kalimojosari Village which is expected to provide information and education to local residents regarding food safety. The implementation method applied was communication, information, and education counseling through the lecture method. The result of this community service activity is an increase in knowledge about food safety issues by 6.08%.