VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
[Construction noises]
[Text on screen] Occupational noise
How occupational noise can affect us, our health, and our loved ones. And the practical steps we can take to stay safe on site.
[Voiceover] At Sydney Metro, we're working with our delivery partners to control and mitigate the effects of occupational noise on our work sites, to protect the workforce and to keep the community safe.
At Central Station, we're delivering a new railway station for Australia's biggest city but it can generate high levels of noise. All around us were surrounded by massive construction activity, excavation, jackhammering, cutting, welding, grinding, and up to not long ago tunnelling deep under Sydney Harbour. All this noise can be detrimental to our long-term health and quality of life.
Aiden Rooney, a delivery director for Sydney Metro, has worked in the construction industry for over 30 years. Over this time he's seen the adverse effects of occupational noise on many of his workers and friends.
How big of an issue is hearing loss in the construction industry?
It's a massive issue to our industry, not just our contractors and Sydney Metro's people on site but globally across the industry is a massive issue.
What are some of the long-term effects of hearing loss?
The biggest impact is their ability to hear their colleagues at work, hear sounds around them. We've gone a long way in the last 40 years in terms of protecting our people and providing training. We do have hearing protection but do we always use them and do we wear them at the right times? That's where I feel that the industry - Sydney Metro can do more in terms of pushing the education.
What are your personal experiences with hearing loss?
The biggest impact from a work perspective on me is my ability to interact with people, particularly in meetings. A related issue to hearing damage is something called tinnitus and again I can speak personally that tinnitus is a constant ringing in your ears. It's like a ringing sound that occurs in in the back of the ear in the back of your brain and it's just there 24/7. For example, we're in a normal construction site environment. You can hear me. I can hear you and this is what it sounds like.
Yes.
If you had moderately impaired hearing this is what it would sound like. [Audio levels shown on screen] and then worst case scenario Bruno, if you had severe hearing disability, hearing damage, this is what it would sound or not sound like. This is just a clear example of the impact that hearing loss can have on the individual and potentially the impact that this will have when the individual takes that disability home to his family and friends.
While hearing loss affects about 15% of the Australian population, only 20% of construction workers have normal hearing by the age of 41. That means 80% of people working in the construction industry have some kind of hearing loss. Hearing loss is permanent and the number of people affected by it is rising.
As a rule, if you need to raise your voice when speaking to someone about a metre away from you, you can assume that the noise levels are hazardous to your hearing. This is a noise meter and we check noise levels and decibels. Let's go check out some decibel levels in everyday tasks and see what the results are.
There are many different types of equipment found on site, which will make noise that can affect your hearing. These can range from minimal decibel readings like this scissor lift. All the way up to elevator readings for powered cutting saws and jackhammers. Another interesting fact is that an increase of just three decibels in sound actually means the noise level has doubled and an extra 10 decibels from 80 to 90 for example, means the noise level has increased 10 times, and hearing loss can impact your health in other ways from ringing in the ears to impaired memory, fatigue, stress, and depression.
At Sydney Metro we're working with our contracting partners to reduce the effects of occupational noise and the risk of hearing loss, and also to improve the understanding of noise exposure prevention and how to control it.
What are some of the ways we can reduce the risk of hearing loss?
As part of our PPE requirements on site, we have earplugs and earmuffs. We make sure we follow signage correctly and it is critical we use hearing protection correctly.
Occupational noise is a very serious issue that can affect your life and your family and friends. Our message is don't take the rules for granted, they're in place to protect you and to keep you safe. And take it from me and my personal experience, you don't want to miss out on those little things in life, you may never get them back.
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