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Posted By Barry Cheeseman
I work in a R&D department and we are currently reviewing our COSHH Risk Assessment Procedures. The people who work in the building are all professionally qualified chemists.There is a dislike of the use of Risk Phrases to describe chemical risks (as used in COSHH Essentials)People think that words such as Toxic, Harmful and irrritant are much more useful in describing the chemical hazard.
There is a policy that all substances hazardous to health are handled in Fume cupboards which are regularly tested and maintained.
The analytical section has problems undertaking extensive risk assessments on indervidual chemicals because of the number and varity of samples that are submitted for analysis. Does anyone have information or examples of COSHH Risk assessments that that they could send me that are used in a similar reaserch environment? Of particular use would be Risk assessments that are used in analytical labs.
Any advice would be welcome.
Regards
Barry
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Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Barry
COSHH assessments should be process or operation based (dilution of acids, pipetting, etc.). Of course, the hazards of the materials must be considered as part of the assessment but you need to think about how you are using them and in what quantities. Concentrated sulphuric acid is undoubtedly hazardous but the risks of using 5 ml at a time on a laboratory bench are very different from using it a tonne at a time in a production environment.
I am a chemist, safety adviser and occupational hygienist; if you want further discussion, contact me off list.
Paul
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Posted By Jay Joshi
Can you not list this vast numbers simply under 3 main "risk" categories (after a conducting a basic first stage COSHH assessment) into Low, Medium & High Risk. In all likelihood, it may be possible to control riks of the "low risk" ones through generic information as you have trained chemists. Then you need a higher degree of control for the "medium risk" and the most comprehensive for the "high risk".
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