If the noise around you makes it necessary for you to raise your voice to make yourself heard to somebody one metre away, your hearing is probably at risk. If, after work, you experience ringing or other noises in the ear or head, technically called tinnitus, it can also mean that your hearing is at risk. Repeated exposure to excessive noise will eventually lead to permanent damage. Unfortunately, lost hearing is gone forever.
Hearing aids offer only limited help.
The 1998 International Labour Office Encyclopedia lists the metal industry as the fourth noisiest manufacturing industry. High noise levels with potentially damaging impact occur in many operations like grinding, punching, shearing, forming etc. Significant impact noises are also produced when handling material such as dumping sheared rods into racks, stacking sheet metal and dropping metal off cuts into metal recycling bins. If you have to raise your voice to a shout to be understood by others one meter away, then the employer, in consultation with occupational safety and health representatives and other employees should list all the machines and activities that produce high noise levels. If it is not possible to eliminate all the noise sources from the workplace then a risk assessment should be undertaken.