Chemical Safety & Management Resources

A hazard is any potential source of harm, damage or adverse health effects on something or someone. To assess a hazard, you need to identify the hazards and risk factors that have the potential to do harm. Next you need to analyze and evaluate the risk associated with the hazard. Then you need to determine ways to eliminate that hazard or control the risk if the hazard cannot be eliminated.

Chemicals have physical, health and environmental hazards. See the hazard categories for chemicals with the GHS pictograms that have been adopted by Canada (WHMIS) and the USA (HazCom). If you do not use, store, handle or dispose of chemicals according to their guidelines and unique properties there is potential for harmful and potentially fatal consequences.

Chemicals can have short-term and long-term health effects on your body. It depends on many factors including how the chemical entered the body also known as the route of exposure. The four types of exposure include inhalation, ingestion, skin contact, skin absorption and injection. An injury like a chemical burn is immediate. Long term exposure and inhalation of silica dust can cause a lung disease called silicosis. Information on the health hazards and effects of a chemical is found in its Safety Data Sheet. This is why its important to have workers trained on the chemicals they handle and an SDS readily available in an emergency so you can refer to the SDS for more information.

The health hazard information is always found on section 2 of the chemical’s Safety Data Sheet. Information on the classification of the chemical, its related pictograms, and hazard statements are listed on this section of the SDS.

The hierarchy of control is the cornerstone of good chemical management. Chemscape follows this practise in the philosophy of their chemical management systems CHAMP. Good chemical management always look to control the chemical hazard starting at the top of the hierarchy using elimination, then substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls and finally with PPE. Elimination is considered the most effective method of chemical control and PPE is considered the least effective method of control.