The meeting will be held in the PLASA Show seminar theatre during the second day of the show and Bonner hopes that as many representatives from the lighting manufacturers exhibiting or visiting the show will take the time to attend. The topic for discussion is a voluntary standard labelling system for their lighting fixtures to communicate the information for the end user in respect of their responsibilities to the new Artificial Optical Radiation Directive (AORD)
The new regulations require all employers to assess the amount of exposure to artificial light their workforce is exposed to. Bonner is concerned that the responsibilities of the manufactures to communicate the correct data to the end users are not fully understood. He explained that "The law requires that the manufacture must inform the end users of any safety information to use their products safely. With the introduction of AORD, PLASA members who make lighting fixtures will need to communicate the information on every fixture they supply". He went on to say " aside from the safety requirements of the regulations, commercial activity for a manufacturer could suffer as more and more companies demand that AORD information is supplied as part of procurement policies, the BBC is a case in point, insisting on AORD information".
Over the last 2 years Bonner has been working with the UK's Health Protection Agency (HPA) to establish just what risks are currently associated with entertainment lighting and a report on the findings of their research was published in May of this year. Those findings will be discussed as part of the meeting and guest speakers will be Dr John O'Hagan and Marina Khazova both of the HPA and Mr Steve Walker of the UK's Health and Safety Executive. It's hoped the meeting will have an open forum format as attendees will be invited to express their thoughts and encouraged to offer suggestions towards a consensus for a voluntary system that everyone adopts and which delivers a standard generic method of safety information easily understood by those users expected to assess the exposure of light exposure as part of their legal duty.
The meeting is by invitation only and invites have gone out to lighting manufacturers within the PLASA membership (UK, EU and International). However Bonner is keen to open this meeting up to those manufactures who are not PLASA members or who are members but may not have received an invite. If you would like to attend please contact Ron directly at ron@plasa.org or contact him at the PLASA Technical Resources Office on +44(0)1323 524129
(Ron Bonner)
