EU Seeks Protection from Cancer-Causing Chemicals
The European Union (EU) Commission has issued a proposal to limit exposure to 13 chemical agents. Find out what’s involved and how the issue affects global businesses.
Category: Chemicals
Today’s workplace uses thousands of chemicals, many of which are hazardous. The resources in this section will help guide you in the safe and legal identification, storage, transport, and use of these chemicals, and in making sure that your employees right to know how to be safe around such substances is provided, as required by law.
TSCA Reform Bill Heads to the White House
The Senate voted to pass a bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Bill. The bill now goes to President Obama for his signature in order to become law. It’s the first time the Act has been amended in 40 years.
Does Your TRI Data Put You at Risk for Other Compliance Obligations?
Ah, the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)! For many facilities, the deadline to submit the annual report for 2015 is just a couple of weeks away—July 1. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sits on this enormous pile of data and is finding new and inventive ways of using the information. Will the Agency’s most recent […]
PSM RAGAGEP—Be Wary of Internal Standards
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently updated its guidance concerning the process safety management (PSM) recommended and generally accepted good engineering practices (RAGAGEP) letter of interpretation. Yesterday we reviewed the general provisions of the guidance. Today we will take a look at what OSHA has to say about using internal standards as RAGAGEP.
Are You Following OSHA’s PSM Best Practices?
An Ohio ethanol production facility faces $149,800 in penalties after Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors found multiple violations, including numerous violations of process safety management (PSM) standards. A chemical manufacturer and distributor in Kansas City was fined $80,000 for PSM violations. These are just two recent cases of large OSHA fines for missteps related to […]
Chemical Cocktails: When Two Are More Dangerous than One
Chemical exposures and chemical hazards are often discussed in isolation—workers are exposed to lead or to methylene chloride or to hydrogen sulfide. But in the real world, workers are often exposed to multiple chemicals, and those combined exposures can pose hazards that were not anticipated based on the properties of the individual chemicals.
Video: GHS Compliance Requirements: HazCom Deadline Approaching
The final deadline for updating your hazard communication program to comply with the GHS requirements is just weeks away. Check out this video for a review of what you need to do to be in compliance by June 1.
TSCA Compromise Bill Released
The House and Senate released a single bill to reform the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act was posted on the website of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW).
Guidance from OSHA on Understanding HCS 2012 Hazard Definitions, Part 2
Yesterday, we looked at some chemical hazard classifications found in HCS 2012—the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS). OSHA and the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication have created a set of Information Sheets intended to help employers understand the new hazard classifications.
Guidance from OSHA on Understanding HCS 2012 Hazard Definitions
One of the greatest changes to OSHA’s hazard communication standard as a result of HCS 2012—OSHA’s adoption of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS)—was its standardization of chemical hazard classifications. Some of these classifications are modified from what they were in the 1994 hazard communication standard (HCS 1994), and others […]