ASSE Asks Members to Urge Employers and Other Organizations to Join 85-3 Campaign
ASSE is asking its members to reach out to employers and other organizations to join the Society as members of the 85-3 Campaign. As the invitation from the campaign indicates, the 85-3 Campaign recognizes organizations and employers that, as part of their hearing protection strategy for workers, have adopted the 85 dBA noise protection level.
It’s easy to join by simply contacting the campaign directly at 85noise@gmail.com. And, if you can, please let Dave Heidorn know of your effort at dheidorn@asse.org.
On joining the campaign this year, ASSE President Richard A. Pollock, CSP, said in a statement, “On behalf of its nearly 35,000 member safety, health and environmental (SH&E) professionals, ASSE is pleased to join the 85-3 Coalition and looks forward to working with the coalition’s members to support the adoption of the 85-dBA average exposure limit for an 8-hour day measured with a 3-dB exchange rate. The appropriateness of the 85-3 level is widely accepted in practice by our members and many of the employers with whom they work throughout the world.”
Early in the year, ASSE urged the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to focus its efforts to improve hearing protection on lowering OSHA’s permissible exposure limit (PEL) for noise from the current 90 dBA (decibel) to 85 dBA. 85-3 is also required in the ANSI/ASSE A10.46 Standard “Hearing Loss Prevention for Construction and Demolition Workers” , and NIOSH has known the gains in hearing protection 85-3 can achieve for decades.