The number of laser machines used for research and producton work in Japan now seems to have increased to about 5,000. The surrounding human safety is seriously affected by the way of handling these machines. The main problems are environmental pollution and operator’s bodily injuries to be inflicted by laser beam. Since the bodily injuries such as a burn, eye damage, etc. to be caused by unfavourable dust and gases as well as hazadous beam have already been reported, we can not increase the application of laser machines to production further without the suitable countermeasures for environmental problems.
In Japan as well as other western countries, The Safety and Sanitary Regulations for laser machines from the point of environmental protection have been published and the quality of the equipment to protect the surrounding human safety seems to have been improved to the degree equivalent to or better than those in western countries. However, the number of their actual use for the laser machines is not enough and should be increased in future. This paper reports about the actual example of counter-measures for environmental protection and the trend of activities in future.