The Key to Safety Data Sheets Compliance

Understanding Prescriptive Regulations

Often when people get safety data sheets, they don’t realize the amount of work that is put into them or how important it is to make sure the data in them is up to date. There are many aspects to consider ranging from the amount of scientific data collected to formatting the safety data sheet based on country regulations. Prescriptive regulations are a set of detailed rules and requirements that organizations must follow to ensure compliance with specific laws and standards. These regulations are designed to provide a clear and structured framework for businesses to operate within, helping to maintain safety, health, and environmental standards. In the context of workplace safety, prescriptive regulations play a crucial role in protecting employees, employers, and the general public.

Overview of WHMIS and OSHA Regulations

In this article the two important prescriptive regulations are going to focus on Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Both regulations provide information on how to manage, use, store, handle and produce hazardous materials through the use of Safety Data Sheets (SDS). SDSs are documents that provide detailed information regarding the properties, hazards, and safer handling procedures for chemicals substances and mixtures. By not following the information in safety data sheets can result in accidents and injuries in the workplace and possibly criminal charges. Ensuring that your company follows these regulations, helps any organization maintain compliance.

Navigating Workplace Health and Safety Requirements

Ensuring health and safety in the workplace can be an overwhelming task. Employers should have a thorough understanding of the regulations and would need to implement a set of processes and procedures to ensure that proper hazard communications are being met. This program should include the following:

Hazardous Material Inventory – this includes tracking all hazardous materials and their respective SDS.
SDS Management – design a system to archive, store and make SDS easily accessible.
Labeling and Signage – all containers and workplace areas should outline any hazardous materials.
Employee Training – ensure employees are aware of how to handle chemicals, for example grounding and bonding with flammable material.
Emergency Preparedness – Develop and review potential hazardous situations such as spill containment and first aid response.
Periodic review and Updates – Continually monitor changes in regulations, and update SDS as necessary to ensure ongoing compliance.

Common Challenges and Tips in Safety Data Sheets Compliance

There are many challenges to ensure your SDS are compliant. This includes keeping up with regulatory changes, obtaining accurate information, maintaining an up-to-date SDS database, ensuring consistent communication between employees, and integrating SDS into company workflows. These challenges will require a proactive approach.

Some tips to ensure compliance would involve a centralized repository for all SDS, a process that involves review, acquiring and storing SDS, defining clear roles and responsibilities to ensure accountability for the SDS, provide training to all employees, regularly review, and update the SDS, as well as maintaining communication with your suppliers and manufacturers.

Conclusion

SDS are a very important document that should be used to ensure compliance in any organization when dealing with health and safety in the workplace. By following SDS which are based on prescriptive regulations, they provide information that prevent workplace injury and death as well as legal liabilities and fines.

ICC Compliance Center has a team of full-time Regulatory Experts who have years of experience and are certified/recognized in their field of expertise. Ask us your tough questions by calling 888.442.9628 (USA) or 888.977.4834 (Canada) or send us an email.