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Recyclers News Press
Page 10
From MSDS to SDS
GLOBAL HARMONIZATION (GHS) BRINGS CHANGES
TO SAFETY DATA SHEETS IN HAZCOM 2012
For decades, the material safety data sheet (MSDS)
has been the back-bone of OSHA’s Hazard Commu-
nication Standard (HCS). As most safety profession-
als know by now, the Hazard Communication Stand-
ard has been revised by OSHA to align with the Glob-
ally Harmonized System of Classification and Label-
ling of Chemicals (GHS), the result of which includes
format changes to the MSDS. HazComm 2012 is now
the standard by which chemicals in the workplace are
governed.
“What is an MSDS?” An MSDS is the document warn-
ing users of the specific dangers of chemical products
used in the workplace and that provides guidance on
their safe handling, storage and disposal. Evaluating
chemical hazards and producing MSDSs and labels
for products are responsibilities chemical manufactur-
ers and distributors have under the HCS.
Maintaining an MSDS for every hazardous chemi-
cal
and making them available to employees as
part of the HCS’s
Right-to-Know
provisions – which
says employees have the right to know about the
chemicals to which they are exposed –
is the re-
sponsibility of employers under HCS
.
Other employer responsibilities include: 1) Maintain-
ing a hazard communication program detailing the
plans for the safe handling of chemicals; 2) Maintain-
ing a written chemical inventory of every hazard
chemical in the facility to which employees are ex-
posed; 3) Maintaining proper labels and warning signs
associated with those chemicals; and 4) Training em-
ployees on chemical hazards and necessary precau-
tions.
An SDS is an MSDS in its new format.
Under the
previous version of HazComm
there were many differ-
ent MSDS styles and formats in use in the United
States including the 16 section ANSI standard MSDS
that looks a lot like the new SDS. The revised
HazComm 2012 standard mandates a set GHS for-
mat for
safety data sheets
, a format which features 16
sections in a particular order.
“Will we have to have two safety data sheet libraries –
one for MSDSs and one for SDSs?” The answer is
no. During the transition to HazCom 2012, employers
should expect their MSDS library will have a mix of
non-GHS formatted and GHS formatted safety data
sheets until the transition is complete and chemical
manufacturers have reclassified all of their chemicals
using GHS criteria and updated all of their chemical
documents.
Employers should expect all MSDSs to be replaced
with GHS formatted SDSs in the next year. The best
way to prepare for the transition is to update the
CHEMICAL PRODUCT INVENTORY (or inventory list
of chemical products) used at the facility. At an auto
recycling facility REMEMBER to include SDS for the
fluids that are evacuated from the vehicles such as
gas, antifreeze and used oil. These SDS will not able
to be product & brand specific since the origin is un-
known so a generic version of the SDS may be used
to represent the chemical in the workplace. On the
next page is a sample chemical inventory for an
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