Posted By CHRISTOPHER HAYWARD It may interest you to know that this very thread had now become famous. It was cited during a Spotlight presentation at the IOSH05 conference today as an example of the sort of thing that gives us all of us a bad name.

Posted By Merv Newman sorrrrry - I'm not FIOSH but FRSH (or is it FRHS ?) - heat of the moment. Merv

Posted By Micky Merv - initials after name, you've defecated to the other side!

Posted By JJ I wholeheartedly agree with Micky. Most of the contributors to this thread SHOULD pack in this forum and leave it for those who wish to use it as the professional forum its meant to be.

Posted By Daniel Stonehouse I find these discussions fascinating as they quite rightly deal with issues that have a bearing in the everyday world, but perhaps many people are too frightned to ask their manager or MD about. Yes, sometimes these discussions descend into a bitter scrum, and some times the discussion has to be locked as it no longer serves any discernible purpose, but overall it works very well, especially when you think of the huge variety of people using it. There is room for everyone in here, as long as they are prepared to bite their tongue sometimes and let others voice their opinion. We can all learn something from others. I know I can, its just a pity I forget it again straight away.

Posted By Ken Taylor So which is it, Merv - Royal Horticultural Society or Royal Society of Health? I resigned from the former when they stopped giving two tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show as part of the subscription. Sometimes is nice to have a bit of a light-hearted chat with one's colleagues in the profession rather than being seriously boring all the time and thereby adding to our public image.

Posted By Heather Aston Mickey Here's what I meant. Used loo roll example. Assess/manage the risk. Decide that the risk is minimal. Make sure children wash their hands before eating after using loo rolls in their D&T class. Avoid the risk. Ban loo rolls. Risk avoidance is a state of mind in this country where people want their existence to be risk-free. Where we never accept that life is all about assessing what risks are acceptable and occasionally exposing ourselves to them rather than living life wrapped in cotton wool. It leads - IMHO - to a culture in which no-one takes responsibility for anything that happens to them and everyone wants compensation for every little thing that goes wrong. I obviously didn't explain that very well last night (it was late) but I hope that helps. Heather

Posted By Micky Thank you Heather. I was a little concerned you might think I was being sarcastic (in view of some of the previous posts) but you've answered the question and I appreciate it. The one thing not brought into this is the emotive subject of parents and children. For example I would not allow my child to play with used toilet rolls in the house - because I perceive it as being unhygienic. Similarly (and perhaps even more so) I would not want him/her playing with used toilet rolls at school. It has nothing to do with blaming others, or suing if something goes wrong. But yes it is being risk averse - show me a parent who isn't. Maybe it is a question of heart ruling mind?

Posted By Paul Costelloe JJ, They're right to complain that there is no need for you to suggest that contributors to this thread are (further) bringing the profession into direpute. Looking at the above they seem to be doing quite a good job of that all by themselves.

Posted By Heather Aston Micky Your comment about parents being over-protective of their children is of course absolutely true and perfectly understandable and I would not mean to suggest that parents should put their children at risk. My comment was aimed at wider society where I believe that people do expect risk to be removed from their daily life and then don't know how to deal with it when they find it. We need to teach our children that the important thing is to recognise the risk, work out how best to minimise it and then act accordingly - if you like, do a personal risk assessment. They must not expect to grow up in a world where everythig is safe and without risk, because life isn't like that. With trying to avoid risk completely you end up with silliness like councils cutting down trees in case conkers hit people on the head or the one I saw this week - a building where the gutters have a lawn growing in them because the caretaker has been told that "elf & safety" stops him going up a stepladder (perfectly safely on level ground and it's a single storey bulding) to remove said weeds. Risk assessment (and frankly common sense) has gone right out the window in cases like this. Paul Thank you for your valuable contribution to the debate. I refer you to my answer to JJ & Zoe's most recent post above. Clearly you have not bothered to read the real debate going on in this thread behind the less serious loo roll discussion that started it. Heather BTW - the thing about having an open mind is not to open it too far in case your brain falls right out.

Posted By Zoe Barnett I'm getting bored with this now! The letter I am going to send to the Telegraph reads thus: As an LEA health and safety adviser I was interested to read the recent letter from a teacher who had been asked not to use toilet rolls in design technology. Following its publication, I raised the question with other respected safety professionals via an international website. The vast majority of them consider there to be an extremely low risk of any harm arising from the use of the loo rolls and there is no need for any control measures such as microwaving them. However, the discussion raised a further, more serious point. Schools and organisations are increasingly acting upon “advice” which has been issued by people who are not qualified or experienced in the field of health and safety. This frequently blurs the line between real risk and theoretical risk and so causes the problems your correspondent described. My colleagues and I would urge all teachers to talk to the health and safety adviser at their LEA whenever questions like this arise. Contrary to the popular impression of the safety profession, these advisers will give calm, sensible and practical advice. Teachers can then be sure that they are acting in both the letter and the spirit of the Health and Safety at Work Act. In the meantime, please be assured that the nation’s five year olds can be left to glue their loo rolls in peace. Yours sincerely etc etc Hopefully this will bring a much needed sense of perspective back to the debate. My thanks to those of you who have replied to me privately!

Posted By Micky Good letter Zoe. Obviously we will not all agree with the content and an example is the giving of '... calm, sensible and practical advice.' Not judging by this thread they won't!

Posted By Messy I know I am a bit late on this thread but I must take issue with those who earlier critisised Izal loo paper. Yes it was useless for the task involved, but it make excellent tracing paper and (wait for it you H&S experts) the paper made a tremendous musical intrument if we folded it over a comb, placed against the mouth and 'hummed' against it! We nicked loads of Izal from filthy School loos to do the latter task and as far as I know, most of us survived. So I will not put up with the constant smears (sorry!) against the Izal name. It was part of my Edukashun

Posted By Micky Oh is that what Izal is. My granny used to cut up newspapers into squares and hang them up on a piece of string. Made a hell of a mess of underwear but you could get a good read if you could get the right bits in the right order!

Posted By Rich Hall why take the risk?? Use the ERIC PD principle and at the bear minimum isolate the user from the roll , ideally eliminate the use of it in the workplace altogether. There is no way that an employee could complain if you dint provide any at all. Is it classed as ' equipment'!

Posted By Andy Petrie Terry, it's discussions like this that make people use their brain and use the message board. Just look at how may responses there are to the typical 'has anyone go a fire risk assessment' question. If we didn't have discussions like this people wouldn't use the board. There are also some very interesting point debated which go well byond the original question allowing the more open minded of us to develop our understanding of safety outside the context in which we work. If you don't approve of such discussions don't read them and don't respond to them.

Posted By Zoe Barnett Some time ago I suggested that we had a separate forum for the less serious posts. However, nothing came of it. Since then we have had a number of lighter threads, including the Great Loo Roll Debate, which I gather was mentioned at the Conference (yet another reason I'm glad I wasn't there). Is this therefore a sign that we do now need the new forum? What do the moderators think?

Posted By Heather Aston The article (yesterday) and letters (today) is in response to a speech by the director general of the CBI Sir Digby Jones to head teachers in which he accuses schools of wrapping children in cotton wool rather than educating them about risk. You can view both online (requires free registration), but a few snippets from Sir Digby here: "We are all taking part in something of a deceit because we are teaching the next generation that risk doesn't exist," "We are saying to them you can have rights until they are coming out of your pores. But responsibilities, taking charge of your own actions? We don't seem to have got it. We are trying to create a nation of victims." Good man. I'm sure we said something similar about 56 posts up! Heather

Posted By Warren Cole Ah yes childhood memories of Izal - it could give you a nasty paper cut, and should have come with a packaging warning - abrasive material may cause harm on contact with skin! What is obviously required is a task based risk assessment

Posted By Jonathan Breeze Which was kind of my point way back (though I admit I put it rather crassly)... We get so eaten up about trying to avoid contamination from one particular source when bacteria are all around us in the first place and about 75% of the population fail to take basic hygiene measures.