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Contractor management

SFU is dedicated to maintaining a safe and healthy environment for everyone on campus, including contractors. The sections below outline SFU's contractor safety management framework and the specific requirements for high-risk work activities. All contractors are required to thoroughly review and understand the information provided on this webpage.

Contractors working with silica

Before you start

Prior to impacting any building material on SFU campuses, the material needs to be assessed for the potential presence of Silica.

Identification and assessment is most commonly done visually based on the type of material, which can reduce or eliminate the requirement for an assessment report.  If there is a specific or uncommon material being impacted with the potential to contain Silica, SFU will retain a 3rd party qualified hazardous building materials consultant to assess and sample the material and have it analyzed by an accredited laboratory for Silica content.  This can be done by requesting it through the SFU Project Manager.

Assessment report and submittals

When all of the materials within your scope of work have been assessed and you are ready to begin work, ensure that the following checks have been made prior to beginning the work:

  1. The materials assessed accurately reflects your scope of work, and every material is accounted for either within the assessment report or visually.

    If this is not true, and the consultant missed a material, there is an uncommon or concealed material discovered or the scope of work has changed, then a reassessment of the materials must be conducted prior to impacting them.

  2. If there are silica-containing materials identified, site-specific risk assessment(s) and safe work procedure(s) for each type of silica-containing material is be required.  Ensure these requirements are met and that EHS and the Project Manager have had a full 48 hours to review these prior to starting work.

Small scope of work

If the work is limited and small in scope (example: drilling a few ½” penetrations into concrete), is an assessment report still required?

No, it is not required since we already know concrete contains silica.  What is required is the site-specific risk assessment and safe work procedures for how the work will be performed.  Even though the size of the work and the impact to the materials may be relatively small, it still requires adequate controls to be implemented to limit the risk of exposure.

Disposal

Silica-containing materials can be disposed of as regular waste, provided they are not contaminated with hazardous materials.