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.
There are many chemicals in use in modern workplaces—and there are a lot of ways workers can be exposed to them. Three employers that were cited within a 1-month period earlier this year provide instructive examples of the kinds of mistakes that lead to overexposures.
It’s time for environment, health, and safety managers to start tracking another chemical. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has added 1-bromopropane (1-BP) to the list of chemicals required to be reported in toxic release inventory (TRI) reports. In addition, the Agency recently released a draft risk assessment for 1-BP. On top of that, the […]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released its proposed amendments to the Chemical Accidental Release Prevention Program, aka the Risk Management Program. Concurrently, the Agency also released a Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA). Yesterday we reviewed EPA’s estimated costs for changes concerning third-party audits, root cost analyses, and safer technology and alternative analyses. Today we […]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released its proposed amendments to the Chemical Accidental Release Prevention Program, aka the Risk Management Program. Concurrently, the Agency also released a Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA). Today and tomorrow, we will explore how much the EPA says the major changes will cost. After comments flow into the Agency, […]
The EPA is proposing mitigation measures to minimize human health incidents associated with paraquat dichloride.
Q. Is secondary containment necessary for storage containers under 55 gallons (i.e. 5 gallon buckets)?
Employers have long been concerned about how smoking affects the workplace in terms of overall health and healthcare costs, the synergistic effects of smoking and workplace exposures, and fire safety. Recently, those concerns have been expanded to include vaping—which, as it turns out, is not really any safer for workers than cigarette smoking. And, just […]
Q. Can you provide some guidance on how to satisfy the requirements of the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) information without revealing the names or Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) numbers of the chemicals we use in our mixtures?
Who knew that when you are ordering your morning latte, you are possibly putting your barista and others at risk? Well, that’s a conclusion that can be drawn from a recent National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report that claims workers at coffee processing facilities risk lung disease due to exposure to airborne […]
Every environment, health, and safety (EHS) manager is faced with the daunting and tedious task of ensuring that the hazardous chemicals in their workplace are correctly classified. And, every EHS manager is aware that the correct classification of chemicals and their hazards is the first critical step in ensuring the safety of the workers who […]