chemical management and safety review
A chemical management and safety review audit examine chemical hazards in addition to the control measures introduced to bring the risk to an acceptable level.
Let's talk about the hazard review process:
- When to conduct a review?
- Considerations for assessing the effectiveness of different types of control measures & regulatory compliances.
REMEMBER: Control measures that focus on worker's behavior require firm & direct reviews. These processes will only work at the time when they are professionally trained towards their safety & fell invested in the training program
Is it Time to conduct a chemical management and safety review?
One of the essential parts of any risk management plan or regulatory compliance is chemical safety reviews. These Chemical Management & safety reviews ideally should be programmed into your calendar. Consider the following three ways to introduce review that triggers your chemical safety plan-
- Periodic site inspections and safety audits. Have managers, supervisors, team leaders, and WHS representatives that conduct site inspections must be an integral part of the system.
- Scheduling preventative maintenance of chemical containers and safety equipment.
- In order to inspect your premises, engagement of external auditors & dangerous goods specialists becomes necessary. A chemical safety review should be considered to investigate notifiable incidents, accidents, or when some unacceptable airborne concentration level is shown in the test results. Several weather or natural calamities might also trigger a review to ensure outdoor chemical revies that have not been damaged.
Don't wait until something goes wrong, so in this case-control measures you put must be kept in place & reviewed regularly as per plan.
A Regulatory Compliance program introduces control measures according to the Hierarchy of Control (HOC). Here are some of the considerations for each group of control measures within the hierarchy.
1. Elimination and exchange measures
One of the most desirable controls is the Elimination controls that strive to completely remove the chemical hazard from the workplace. But a follow-up audit is definitely needed to check if the hazard has been actually removed. Here is a short & quick example:
A chemical hazard has been discovered in the lab. Workers are creating chemicals for all their experiments & test by their hands while the raw materials are being bought by the lab. In order to eliminate or avoid the hazard, the lab decided to buy pre-mixed chemicals so that the hazardous mixing process is avoided. Here a chemical management and safety audit determine that if the purchasing officer is ordering enough premixed chemicals or not and if any situations are resulting in manual mixing.
Substitution or Exchange controls try to find less hazardous chemicals or the work procedure. Instead of any chemical solvent, water-based detergents are the best possible replacements. Again a review of the situation is to be done that must consider the following less-harmful options:
- The effectiveness of the substitute, and if the replacement matches the requirement.
- Compatibility issues.
- If the substitute is generating new chemical products or toxic products.
2. Isolation and engineering controls
Better isolation controls should be done such that workers could be separated from chemicals, but mainly all we can do is reduce the number of people actually exposed to the chemicals. Some of the isolation equipment include glove boxes & sealed enclosures that needed to be opened and accessed for maintenance & cleaning, here hazard reviews will be able to evaluate if the isolation measure is actually working on not. Some of the Engineering controls are mechanical devices, equipment, and machinery that reduce the impact of a chemical hazard. Your review might involve testing breathing zones of workers, as well as carrying out preventive maintenance and cleaning hoods, ductwork, and fans.
3. Administrative controls
Work methods, operating procedures, and staff training programs are the administrative controls that focus on chemical safety. They are effective and reliable only when followed up with adequate supervision and regular reviews.
Conducting safety audits and inspections that have checks to review administrative controls you would be for things like:
Entering restricted areas of unauthorized staff and contractors.
Handling flammable liquids by untrained or unqualified staff.
Not providing sufficient work-rest schedules to limit the amount of time of workers engaged with the chemicals.
Poor housekeeping procedures.
4. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
As a chemical control measure ®ulatory compliances taken in mind, PPE being the temporary barrier between worker & chemical, it is least desirable. Regular usage reviews & using procedures are absolutely essential. Your review should include checks for:
- Damaged, broken, missing, or unhygienic PPE.
- Usage of unfitted PPE.
- Used PPE being left lying around the worksite.
- Workers taking off PPE too soon or otherwise using it incorrectly.
Here are some of the regulatory measures that must be in mind while in a safety review.


















