Page 14 - Australasian Paint & Panel magazine Nov-Dec 2021

NEWS
14
PAINT&PANEL NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2021
WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.AU
WELDERS SHOULD BREATHE EASY
BASED ON OVERWHELMING FEEDBACK
from the welding industry, Safe Work Australia has decided against removing the workplace exposure limit (WEL) for welding fume, according to welding equipment supplier AWS.
Originally, it made sense to remove the WEL for welding fume not otherwise classified because it was already meas- ured for the individual constituents with- in welding fume; eg. manganese, chro- mium, etc. Especially when many of the
WELs for the individual constituents are far lower than the WEL for welding fume. However, many questioned if the com- bination of chemicals over a certain lev- el is not dangerous to health? Is there research to back this up? So, the other side of the debate was to not remove it but to rather invest in the research to un-
derstand what this WEL should be.
The concern was also the removal of the WEL for welding fume would send the wrong message to the industry. Even
though this action was being proposed be- cause welding fume is dangerous to health, it could be seen as the exact opposite for those who do not read into the reasons and research behind the decision.
Investing in research and looking to oth- er countries like Germany and the Nether- lands that have lower WELs for welding fume and rolling out a lower WEL for weld- ing fume in Australia would send a clear message to the industry that welding fume is serious and action is required.
this year Sampsons’ Smash Repairs in Tamworth’s ultra clean paint mixing room was the top post viewed.
2021 TOP STORIES
IT’S NOT OVER YET BUT AS THIS IS THE
last issue of the year here’s the top per- forming stories on the website and posts on social media and our podcasts.
WEBSITE: It’s been a turbulent year for AMA Group and all our most read stories wereaboutthem.Thethreeparthistory of AMA Group and the stories about the court action against former CEO Andy Hopkins ranked the highest this year.
The Paint & Panel website has had 111,502 users so far with June the busi- est month with 14,661 users.
PODCAST: We went weekly with our pod- cast this year and it has proved im-
mensely popular with 5886 downloads so far. The top three listened to podcasts this year have been:
PAP045: Understanding ADAS with Hella Gutmann Solutions
PAP046: Protecting the Future of the Industry with Axalta’s Robin Taylor
PAP058: How will AI play a part in Vehicle Assessing
FACEBOOK: The most popular posts on Fa- cebook are always pictures of shops –