Hello, first off I want to say I love the show, and find it to be very entertaining...However being in the industrial trades myself (welder) I am becoming increasingly concerned, and shocked to see what appears to be a total lack of safety practices employed by the teams...some of the glaringly obvious concerns are: Welding without proper safety glasses, and gloves, as well as other members of the teams standing around watching a person weld!! this is crazy! I was wondering how many people in the gameshow have actually incurred eye injuries from this?? I have also noticed a lack of eye protection employed while cutting, drilling, and just any general acivity in the "build area" How come you don't enforce the use of safety glasses and other safety equipment??

Tbear

-- Patrick Cassidy (apostlepyris@hotmail.com), December 17, 2000

Answers

I must stress that we treat safety as a prime concern for all personnel involved in the production of Scrapheap, both on screen and off. All of the teams and experts are vetted to ensure that they have the knowledge and understanding to use all of the tools available in the correct manner. We also provide all necessary protective equipment from welding gloves and safety goggles to masks and pads. Where a team member is unsure then we provide training and advice as well as a safety briefing before each day of filming. It is true that on occasion you will spot a team member who has temporarily discarded one of these items in the excitement of the build, however we will then remind them to put them back on! We agree at the start that we will step in if we observe something that we deem to be dangerous although we like to let the teams manage their own 'workshop area' as much as possible. This may result in the final programme showing practices that may appear dangerous, yet as with smashing down walls and driving underwater vehicles there are a great deal of safety preparations and planning behind the scenes that are there to allow us the element of spontaneity that makes the series what it is.

-- (scrapheap@rdfmedia.com), December 18, 2000.