Abstract
INAIL’s Department of Production Plants and Human Settlements is concerned with the health and safety-related aspects of remediation activities at contaminated sites. One of the main aspects of such activity is the identification of risks to human health and safety and the consequent selection of measures and actions needed to safeguard the persons involved in remediation work. These activities even tough similar to those of the civil engineering and building sector, can differ greatly from them, and also from other occupational situations involving hazardous substances, bringing about specific, sometimes exclusive and specially varied hazards, e.g. the uncontrolled condition of the site and the large variety and number of substances that may be present and frequently unknown, particularly in the initial stages of an investigation. For this reason, publications illustrating the occupational health and safety risks referring generally to traditional “temporary or mobile construction sites” or to generic chemical hazards are inadequate.
The aim of this paper is to critically compare currently available specialized publications on worker protection to provide a complete and exhaustive overview of them, offering so a useful tool for occupational Safety and Health Management in contaminated sites. Considered publications were divided into “Publications of a general nature“ (solely international), which, for their completeness and depth may be deemed as specialist manuals, and “Specific publications” (mainly national) that deal in depth with only specific ambits.
