有害廢棄物處理作業安全衛生初探

Issues on Safety and Health in Hazardous Waste Treatment

近年來，有鑑於有害廢棄物所衍生的問題日益嚴重，環保署已積極管理有害廢棄物的儲存、清除、處理等工作，以期有效地管制有害事業廢棄物的流佈。另外，也準備大規模地對非法有害廢棄物棄置污染地點進行清除工作。同時，國際間的共識也顯示出各國必須自行處理其境內所產生之有害廢棄物的新趨勢。這些國內外的發展趨勢顯示，有害廢棄物處理這一行業在臺灣將順勢而起，發展成一個相當規模的行業。然而，針對此一行業的複雜性與高危險性，目前國內探討相關作業人員安全衛生問題的文獻有限。為了保障這些作業人員的安全與健康，本文即以此一行業為主體，探討安全衛生工作應關注的重點，包括健康監測、防護具使用、環境偵測與評估、工作區域劃分、除污、桶狀容器處理、緊急應變等方面。希望能引起各方重視，讓大家共同來協助有害廢棄物處理這一行業潛在的安全衛生問題，使有害廢棄物處理作業活動對工作人員及大眾的風險都能降至最低。

In the past decade, uncontrolled hazardous waste has resulted in serious environmental problems in Taiwan. The Environmental Protection Agency of Taiwan has been, therefore, actively involved in the management of manufacturers’ activities in hazardous waste clean-up, disposal, and storage, in order to control the dispersal of hazardous waste. At the mean time, the Agency is determined to clean up those polluted sites by illegal hazardous waste dumping. Meanwhile, it has been international consensus that the hazardous waste must be handled and treated by the country herself who produced it, and not allowed to be transported trans-boundary. With this in mind, the hazardous waste treatment industry in Taiwan is expected to be well developed to a large extent. However, up to the present time, there are few literatures in Taiwan discussing the occupational safety and health issues in terms of complexity and high risk of hazardous waste treatment. In order to provide information of safety and health for the workers in this industry, this article focuses on the occupational safety and health issues in this field, including medical surveillance, use of personal protective equipment, environmental monitoring and evaluation, control of work place, decontamination, handling of drums or other containers, and emergency response. It is hoped that this article may draw attentions of experts from various fields to solve the potential safety and health problems resulting from the hazardous waste treatment.