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>> The NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation Program visits workplaces across the country to find out if hazards pose a risk to workers' health. We offer guidance in how to make workplaces safer. But, what actually happens when we come to a workplace? To answer that question, we brought a camera crew along, on a visit to Cleanlites, an electronics recycler. We want to show you some of our activities, and let you hear from the employer and employees, about their experience with us. In this video, you'll see how we detect chemical contamination, on workers' hands, and on workplace surfaces.

>> My name is Adrian Frost, I'm the Environmental Health and Safety manager for Cleanlites. Cleanlites, we're a recycler. This facility focuses on e-waste, for electronic waste.

>> My name is Diana and I'm an industrial hygienist. As an industrial hygienist, we assess exposures in the workplace and determine if they're work-related, and if they're contributing to health concerns. We are focusing on the metals and flame retardants that are in the electronics, and that could be released when they are dismantled, shredded, or processed in any other way.

>> So, the hand wipes, we've done 2 different types of hand wipes. On the first day we were here, we did hand wipes to look at-- this was after the employees washed their hands, they were ready to go home, to see if they had any of these metals left on their hands. Then, we're doing pre-shift and post-shift hand wipes, and we'll see what they come to work with from home, and then we can measure, do they increase over the course of the work shift, which will let us know which ones they're being exposed to at work.

>> Easy? Not something that I usually do on a daily basis, but it's-- you get used to stuff. I guess, as people remind you sometimes, it's a easy task to do.

>> Everything that they've asked us to do so far is-- there hasn't been anything hard or anything difficult. It's just a matter of setting your mind to do it. Just getting yourself out of the norm-- of your normal routine. Other than that, you guys are alright. You're harmless.

>> It is an indication of the cleanliness of the non-production areas, as people usually are in those areas unprotected, and sometimes they eat in those areas. So, then we want to make sure that those areas are kept clean, otherwise the surface contamination can contribute to their overall exposure. The end result is to understand what are ways to minimize exposures to these chemicals, and in the future we hope that with the information that we produce the scientific community would eventually provide some of the research for the limits to these chemicals too.

>> Well, the biggest benefit is that we have a-- basically, almost a whole community of experts, so when they're doing the studies, this is-- folks that we can rely on, or count on to do expert studies.

>> I like it. It makes me feel kind of safe to find-- know that I'm going to find out if the environment I'm working in is safe or not.

>> Remember, just rinse your hands with water, no soap.

>> Well, yes, easy folks to work with. They're excited about what they do which is always great, because then they put a lot of effort, a lot of work, and they're very knowledgeable, and they're willing to take the time to explain the more technical things, and to share their knowledge with all of us. I definitely encourage any industry to do this kind of evaluations.

>> We can do it all. We can do anything that's chemical, biological, physical, psychological hazards. We have psychologists, we have biostatisticians, engineers, health physicists, so we do everything. We can evaluate any potential health risk in the workplace.

>> If you think there's a potential health risk in your workplace, request a health hazard evaluation from NIOSH.