WSH (Noise) Regulations 2011
Workplace Safety and Health (Noise) 2011
The Workplace Safety and Health (Noise) Regulations 2011 were gazetted on 22 July 2011 and will come into operation on 1st September 2011.
About the new WSH (Noise) Regulations 2011
The Regulations seek to ensure that all workplaces where a person is exposed or is likely to be exposed to excessive noise, are provided with adequate legal safeguards. This will replace the current Factories (Noise) Regulations with effect from 1 September 2011.
The following are the key enhancements:
- Expand coverage to all workplaces - Currently, only factories are required to put in place measures to protect persons at work against excessive noise. With the impending expansion of the WSH Act to cover all workplaces by September 2011 and the incidence of excessive noise today is also present in other workplaces, the coverage of the Regulations is extended to all workplaces.
- Assign duty-holders for the provisions - This enhancement aids respective stakeholders in the industry to implement more effective risk assessment systems for their workplaces by providing greater clarity and understanding of their duties. (Risk assessment is a process of identifying and assessing all risks where persons are exposed or are likely to be exposed to excessive noise, and to take all reasonable practicable measures to eliminate or mitigate the risks to an acceptable level).
- Other changes - We also incorporated other technical changes by inserting (i) penalty provisions to commensurate with the corresponding offences; and (ii) noise exposure level for duration of up to 16 hours (to provide clarity for those working on 12-hour shifts). In addition, we also made minor editorial enhancements to the overall structure and flow of the Regulations.
The Regulations can be viewed here.