Question: how do you protect yourself when you are dealing with the sewers?

Charlene Chung answered on 4 Mar 2019:

Whenever I am going on a site visit I wear the appropriate clothing and PPE, which stands for Personal Protective Equipment.

This includes site boots, which protect my feet from objects that could drop from height and are a sturdy grip. These are cleaned after coming back from site if I was in contact with anything messy.
I wear a hi vis jacket so I can be seen.
I wear a hard hat again if anything falls from height.
Protective glasses so if anything is splashed onto my, it doesn’t harm my eyes.
Gloves too to protect my skin and I had come into contact with anything can be harmful to skin.
Ear defenders are sometimes worn as some pumping stations and sewage treatment plants can be quite loud.

Before I go out on site, I do a risk assessment which covers what will happen when I am there, and what are the risks that might be encountered and the actions to take if anything it dangerous or unsafe.

When I go out on site I meet up with a site crew, and one of the crew are lowered into the manholes to taken information, photos and all the measurements I need to start building or update the model. I stay at the side of the open manholes and do look down them also, but I don’t enter them.

The site crew also do a risk assessment before the go out on site. If there is any situation that is not safe for any of us, for example; manholes too close to dangerous roads or a really deep chamber which they cannot safely be lowered in and out of they do not carry on and take their safety into account first.