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SECTION 9: Environmental care

Workplace safety

Timber industry businesses operate in a wide range of environments – from native and plantation forests, to sawmills and manufacturing plants, to wholesalers and retailers.

Their obligations for protecting the local environment will differ widely, depending on where they operate and what activities they carry out.

In this section, we'll look at some of the basic environmental care issues that all businesses in the industry need to deal with, such as:

  • water pollution, including the pollution of stormwater drains and local water courses

  • air pollution, particularly from sawdust

  • waste, including the disposal, reuse and recycling of waste products

  • hazardous materials, such as fuel and preservative treated timber.

If you are working in a job role that has specific environmental protection requirements – such as forest growing, forest harvesting, treatment plant operation, and so on – you will be given learning materials that relate directly to the environmental issues that apply to those activities.

This general coverage of environmental care procedures is designed to help you with the background knowledge requirements for the following two units of competency:

  • FWPCOR2209 – Follow environmental protection procedures in forest and wood products operations

  • FWPCOR3205 – Apply safety, health and environmental requirements in forest and wood products operations.

Contents

There are four lessons in this section: