Atlanta, Georgia – The US Centre for the Polyurethane Industry (CPI) is very happy with its alliance with regulator OSHA and could extend it by five years, Lee Salamone, senior director of CPI said here in an interview ahead of the annual meeting.
OSHA is the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It entered the alliance with CPI in October 2017.
'The OSHA alliance has exceeded my expectations,' Salamone said. It has helped the industry and regulators come together and better understand each other's perspectives.
Because of the alliance, 'we are able to get meetings scheduled and talk to people that were a true struggle to get to before.'
During 2019, for example, 'we were able to schedule a meeting with the OSHA analytical laboratory Salt Lake City, Utah. We have been trying to get our analytical chemistry experts to meet their experts so that they could talk about the way that they handle isocyanates. Once we had the alliance we were able to get that schedule.'
Looking to the future, she said: 'We have one more year left on this alliance. Then, probably in 6 to 8 months, we will start discussing whether we want to sign up again. This time it could be for five years'.
It is not a foregone decision, she said. CPI members must approve the move and 'we have to make sure we have enough plans to keep the alliance alive and moving'.
Also in 2019, the CPI plans to reinvigorate some of its other product stewardship resources. This is following the success of a website offering spray-foam training. Videos about handling diisocyanates safely during transport will be updated, she said.
Good resources work, she said: 'At the end of 2017 we relaunched the spray foam training website. This has now trained over 27,000 people; mostly through high-pressure training, but some through low-pressure training, she said. The training is available in both English and Spanish.
