CoGDEM Comment - Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

CoGDEM is the Council of Gas Detection and Environmental Monitoring, a trade association with a membership of around sixty companies involved in the gas detection industry. We are pleased to have ILM/ETP (the publishers of this IET magazine) as an Associate Member, so we now place a regular column of news from the gas detection industry in IET magazine.

IET readers are likely to be aware that exposure to toxic concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) can occur in the workplace or in domestic or leisure environments.  CoGDEM has been made aware of recent workplace incidents in the UK that occurred in a biomass-burning power station and onboard a trawler.  The Workplace Exposure Limit for CO is listed in the HSE’s guidance document EH40, and there is a massive amount of CO detection apparatus available from CoGDEM member companies.

Domestic incidents of CO poisoning are surprisingly common, and CoGDEM’s helpline hears firsthand reports of health effects caused by exposure to CO, usually emitted from heating or cooking appliances that burn fossil fuels.  Unfortunately, an average of 40 UK people a year die from accidental acute poisoning, and a lack of knowledge about CO and low ownership of CO alarms means that these deaths and injuries could well have been prevented.

Carbon monoxide is most usually a product of incomplete combustion of a hydrocarbon fuel, such as natural gas (methane), bottled gas (LPG, propane or butane), coal, charcoal, wood, oil or petrol.  Insufficient oxygen in the combustion process is the most common cause of CO production, with poor ventilation, leaking flues or appliance misuse allowing the CO to enter living spaces.

It is an ongoing task to make domestic consumers aware of the risks and how to protect themselves against them.  This is one of the key roles of CoGDEM’s CO Sub Group, which includes manufacturers of domestic CO alarms, Flue Gas Analysers and workplace gas detection instruments.  CoGDEM helps to fund the All Fuels Forum which operates under the umbrella of the All Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group, and we support various industry bodies with technical assistance.  One such body is Energy UK, the trade association for the UK’s gas retail companies, who run the ‘CO-Be Alarmed’ campaign which aims to get media coverage on the subject.

This year’s ‘CO-Be Alarmed’ media day took place on 29th October 2015, with national coverage on ITV breakfast television and lunchtime BBC Radio 2, along with several dozen local radio stations and newspaper/magazine articles.  To interest the media, popstar Nadine Coyle (ex-‘Girls Aloud’) was interviewed about how she was poisoned by CO over a period of several months while living in a rented property in California.  Her health symptoms went undiagnosed until a regular service visit found a cracked boiler had been allowing CO to seep into her home.  After this was found and CO poisoning was subsequently diagnosed, it took Nadine another few months to shake off the effects of her long term exposure, so she is now an advocate of regular appliance maintenance as well as the fitting of domestic CO alarms (compliant with the tough safety standard EN 50291).