Management of Work Environment for ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000

Work Environment

Writing a work environmental management program is not an easy task, considering various food industry risk mitigation requirements, food safety, regulatory requirements, and customer requirements that are inherent to any given specific food. However, the work environment is the most impactful area where little ignorance can cost disasters while being most cost-effective for food manufacturers to look at as a way of eliminating the root causes at minimal impact. Thus, there are various factors to look at while designing an individual plan for a specific food product or processing facility, depending on whether it manufactures a single product or multiple products. If so, are there any high risk, low-risk product mix or any allergen is used in the manufacture if a wet process or dry process is used, what kind of human or machinery involvement, how they are cleaned, what chemicals are used, etc. need to be assessed while considering CCPs, OPRPs, and risk zones within the manufacture and site schematics of the facility? Hence, you have to develop a comprehensive  environmental management program that balanced the internal environmental requirements as well as out side environment.   

 

Environmental Impacts Plan and Controls

The following activity will help you carry out a risk assessment of the environmental impact of your food facility. If you have more than one site, assess the risk for each site separately. Start by taking an overview of all the processes and activities on your site.

Decide if they present a high, medium, or low actual or potential environmental risk during normal operating conditions or if you had an accident. Then identify areas as High, Medium, or low risk and complete an individual assessment on each considerable environmental risk identified. 

Factors to consider as you carry out your risk assessment can include but are not limited to processes, activities, and equipment such as raw material storage, including the condition of containers, plant operation and maintenance, oil separator operation and maintenance, and material transport routes.

Raw materials, water, energy, and waste must be evaluated based on volumes of raw material used, recorded/ metered water use, gas and electricity used, recycling/recovery, and disposal of waste.

Accurate calculations of Emissions from your site to air, water, sewers, and land must be calculated before design your recovery systems.

Site location and impact on the local environment and communities need to be evaluated on the distance to surface waters, groundwater and water abstraction points, surface water drains and foul drains/sewers that flow across and off your site, soakaways, Sustainable Drainage Systems, and unsurfaced ground, your sites flood risk, housing, and community facilities near your site, protected areas or toxic environments.

You should assess what could happen if you had a spill or accident and risks posed to the environment and people, as well as possible effects of accidents, flooding, vandalism, and failure of containment. Nonetheless, the physical, chemical and biological properties of any material that may be spilled during the operation need to be identified and provide pollution control equipment.

 

Site Plan

Prepare a site plan that shows locations of the following items, including site entrances and exits available to the emergency services and the buildings and other main constructions.

The drainage is a very critical area, which must include, foul drainage (marked in red), surface water drainage (marked in blue), combined drainage marked with a red ‘C,’ and showing the direction of flow, discharge points to the sewer, watercourse or soakaway and location of manhole covers and drains, location of stop and diverter valves and interceptors, location of pollution control equipment, for example, drain covers and spill kits.

Service mains must be identified, including the routes of water supply, gas, electricity, mains water stop tap, and gas and electrical supply isolating valves/switch.

Nonetheless, show the storage areas of hazardous materials, such as oil and fuel tanks/drums, chemical stores, raw materials, waste materials, etc., process lines with location and direction of main process lines/pipes.

Clearly mark accident and emergency response items, such as personal protective equipment, fire extinguishers, fire hydrants, fire water tanks/ponds, pollution control equipment (spill kits), sand bags, alarms, first aid kits, etc.

Identify vulnerable receptors on-site or adjacent receptors that could be affected by the site operations, such as porous/unmade ground, watercourses, springs, boreholes, ecologically sensitive sites, residential properties, schools, offices, hospitals etc.

Most importantly, identify internal pollution control points, such as inspection or monitoring points, raw or processed areas.

Identify the location of any on-site trade effluent or sewage effluent treatment plant.

 

Once you conducted the given activities, you come to a point where you need to write down it into a procedure that is basically covered under Prerequisite Programs of the ISO 22000. The following is an example of how to write a generic environmental management program that was based on a single product (black tea manufacturing facility) with medium risk under wet and dry manufacturing processes. The procedure can be used in ISO 22000: 2018 or FSSC 22000 food safety management systems with specific modifications for a given site.     

         

 

ISO 22000 - PREREQUISITE PROGRAMME

 

PRP 00 – WORK ENVIRONMENT

 

Distribution:

Director/General Manager

Factory Manager

Factory Officer

Quality Assurance Manager

Assistant Factory Officers

Consultant – FSMS

 

Objective

The objective is to outline the establishment, management, and maintenance of a clean and safe work environment.

 

Scope

This procedure covers the processing and storage areas of orthodox black tea manufacture, which covers the handling of refuse tea and appropriate disposal according to SLTB regulations. 

 

Responsibility

General Manager – Providing guidance and establishing requirements

Factory Manager   – Providing necessary facilities

                                 – Maintenance of the facilities

Q A Manager                     – Identification of necessary requirements

Asst. Factory Officers       – Monitoring the effectiveness

Consultant – FSMS            – Ensuring the FSMS requirements are fulfilled

                                            

Activities

The process flow is designed and organized to create a continuous flow of product through the process and prevent cross-contamination. The process and storage areas must be separated, the flow of personnel and cross movements must be restricted.

Pathways must be demarcated to prevent cross-contamination.

Packaging materials and other inventories must be received and stored separately from raw materials to ensure that there is no cross-contamination.  Unprocessed raw materials must be received and segregated to ensure that there is no cross-contamination.

A sufficient supply of fresh air must be provided to each processing area, depending on the operation.

According to the situation, necessary resources must be disposed of as and when required to provide a clean and hassle-free work environment for the employees.

The management must ensure to create non-discriminatory, non-confrontational working conditions to reduce environmental stress to obtain an effective work attitude from the employees.

High-risk foods must be processed under controlled conditions and subjected to post-process handling, which is protected/segregated from other processes, raw materials, or operators who handle the raw materials to ensure cross-contamination is minimized.

Areas in which high-risk processes are conducted must only be serviced by operators dedicated to that function.

Employee access points must be located, designed, and equipped to provide employees with facilities to practice a high standard of personal hygiene and the use of distinctive protective clothing to prevent product contamination. Employees engaged in high-risk areas must change into clean clothing or temporary protective outerwear when entering high-risk areas. Employees entering the production and high-risk areas must:

Take a clean, white smock from the rack outside the production area and put it on, and smocks must cover outer clothing.

Take the correct size, clean recommended shoes from the shelves outside the production area, remove street shoes, and put them on.

Take a disposable hair cover from the box by the entry point and put it on, and make sure to capture all loose hair; as well as the men with facial hair must also use beard nets.

Wash hands just before entering the production area, following the procedures posted by the sink, and apply a clean pair of gloves.

When exiting the room, deposit smocks and shoes in the receptacles provided and do not return them to the clean smocks and shoe racks.

Maintenance workers and visitors must use foot covers and clean smocks when entering production areas, where traffic must be minimized during the production.

The sanitation supervisor must visually observe the presence of the adequately smocked employees at the beginning of the shift and after the lunch break, and every 2 hours. If employees are found to be inappropriately dressed, they are instructed to dress correctly.

Product transfer points must be located and designed so as not to compromise high-risk segregation and to minimize the risk of cross-contamination.

The humidity, temperature/heat, light, airflow, and noise must be controlled, or protection measures will be provided when required. 

Inspections for foreign matter contamination must be conducted to ensure plant and equipment remain in good condition, the equipment has not deteriorated, and is free from potential contaminants.

Glass-made materials used in the facility must be listed in a glass register, including details of their location.

Containers, equipment, and other utensils made of glass, porcelain, ceramics, laboratory glassware, or other such material must not be permitted in food processing /contact zones, except if the product is contained in packaging made from such materials or measurement instruments with glass dial covers or thermometers.

Regular inspections must be conducted to ensure food handling/contact zones are free of glass or other such material and to establish changes to the condition of the objects listed in the glass register.

Glass instrument dial covers on processing equipment and thermometers must be inspected at the start and the end of each shift to confirm that they have not been damaged.

Wooden pallets and other wooden utensils used in food handling/contact zones must be subject to regular inspection for their suitability and dedicated for the purpose, kept clean, and maintained in good order. 

Loose metal objects on equipment, equipment covers, and overhead structures must be removed or tightly fixed so as not to present a hazard.

The knives and cutting instruments used in processing and packaging operations must be controlled, kept clean, and well maintained. 

The responsibility, methods, and frequency for monitoring, maintaining, calibrating, and using screens, sieves, filters, or other technologies to remove or detect foreign matter must be documented and implemented.

Metal detectors or other physical contaminant detection technologies must be routinely monitored, validated, and verified for operational effectiveness. The equipment must be designed to isolate defective products and indicate when it is rejected.

Records must be maintained of the inspection of foreign object detection devices and any products rejected or removed by them. Records must include any corrective actions resulting from the assessments.

In all foreign matter contamination cases, the affected batch or item must be isolated, inspected, reworked, or disposed of.

If glass or similar material breakage occurs, the affected area must be isolated, cleaned, and thoroughly inspected, including cleaning equipment and footwear, and cleared after inspection by the responsible AFO prior to the commencement of operations.

The employees must be fairly treated according to the human resource policies implemented.

Relevant occupational health and safety measures must be implemented, including fire safety, smoke protection, maximum weight limits, including protective uniforms, goggles and gumboots, and first aid whenever applicable.

The sickroom and relevant infrastructure must be provided with on-call facilities for medical treatments in case of an emergency.

Floors of processing areas must be maintained clean and dry during production time.

Walls, roofs, ceilings, and overhead fixtures must be cleaned regularly to prevent the accumulation of dirt and dust.

All solid waste must be collected in closed bins and removed from the factory to the enclosed collection point regularly to prevent accumulation.

The collected waste must be disposed of with care to avoid cross-contamination and multiplication. 

All internal drains must be maintained clean to prevent the stagnation of water.

All external drains must be cleaned once a month to prevent water stagnation.

External housekeeping activities must be supervised by an Assistant Factory Officer on a rotatory basis.

Environmental monitoring (microbiological tests) must be conducted according to the testing schedule to evaluate the level of air-bone contamination.

Necessary improvements and upgrades must be made based on the findings of periodic evaluations.

Continuous communication between officials of the core production processes and support services must be ensured.

The refuse tea released to the environment must be confirmed to the legal requirements.

The functionality and effectiveness of waste disposal must be monitored by the Factory Manager.

Solid waste must be disposed of according to the statutory and regulatory requirements.

Sewage disposal must comply with sanitary and regulatory requirements specified by the regional health inspection services.

Facilities and methods of disposal of the contracted refuse tea collectors (if any) must be monitored and approved by the company.

The administration buildings and peripheral areas must be kept organized and well cleaned, where individual cleaning staff must be hired as necessary.

 

References

The testing schedule for environmental monitoring

Refuse tea disposal methods and schedules of SLTB

Environmental Risk Assessment

Site Plan 

List of Key Site and Emergency Contacts

List of Substances and Storage Facilities

Preventing Accidents / Possible incidents and what to do if they happen.

 

Records

Test report – environmental monitoring – FSMS 04/PRP/10/RP/01

Refuse tea disposal record – FSMS 04/PRP/10/RC/01 

Cleaning checklist for admin and peripheral areas – FSMS 04/PRP/10/RC/02  

Glass, brittle plastic, and ceramic preventive control plan – FSMS 04/PRP/10/RC/03

 

Reference:

ISO/FSSC 22000/FSMA Preventive Control Generic Model: FSSC/ISO 22000 & FSMA Preventive Controls Integrated Food Safety Management System – A private Label Version

http://www.fwr.org/WQreg/Appendices/Food_and_drink_LIT_8422_963b8b.pdf