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#1 Posted : 03 July 2003 14:50:00(UTC)
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Posted By Steve Wood As a contractor in the water industry we occasionally work on trade effluent sewers, and are given lists of possible chemical contaminants that may be found therein. Is there a reliable on-line source of information that I can use as a first port of call? I'm not a chemist, so ideally I'd like to be able to type in a name and get some sort of info back on toxicity, levels of exposure, etc., before I go hunting for an expert!
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#2 Posted : 03 July 2003 15:34:00(UTC)
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Posted By LittleBG Hi Steve Perhaps the website below would be a good starting point for your investigations? http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/ Hope you find it useful!!!! Regards Brian
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#3 Posted : 03 July 2003 15:41:00(UTC)
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#4 Posted : 03 July 2003 15:43:00(UTC)
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Posted By Sean Fraser Steve, Try the HSE-based COSHH Essentials database - it should be useful to you as it was set up for exactly this purpose. http://www.coshh-essentials.org.uk/ Regards, Sean.
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#5 Posted : 09 July 2003 16:45:00(UTC)
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Posted By Diane Thomason Steve, I'd suggest talking to the water authority, as they must have a good idea of the level of risk involved in working on these sewers. If you are doing the work for them they also have a duty to provide you with hazard and risk info. I see little point in labouring through MSDSs for all the possible chemicals involved - at any given time there is likely to be varying levels of the chemicals in the effluent and some may be completely absent at times. You really need the advice of someone competent in chemical safety to evaluate the toxicity info on MSDSs and the like. Regards Diane
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#6 Posted : 09 July 2003 17:03:00(UTC)
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Posted By Dave Wilson Steve, Suggest that your first port of call is the Env Agency / water Authority as anyone who disposes of trade effluent must have a consent or authoristion under IPC/IPPC before they will be allowed to discharge and so the EA/WA will have given consent for this. So they (EA/WA) would have Q systems inplace to monitor what is actually being dischrged and the likely contaminant therein, also the synergistic effect for each waste stream as this mixes with other 'polluters'. Remember that the chemicals will vary from discharge point to discharge point on a daily and even hourly basis and will be in diffierent concentrations and therfore hazards and risks involved could also be diffirent. If you are doing contract work for them then they have a duty to inform you of any likely hazards and the subsequent risks to which your employees may encounter, personally I would not use MSDS as these are for the raw data regarding individual chemicals and their inherent properties, realistically would a manufacturer dispose of a pure chemical substance if he can sell it on or recycle / re-use? waste is just that - 'waste'
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#7 Posted : 10 July 2003 11:51:00(UTC)
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Posted By Steve Wood thanks to all for good advice and useful web-sites.
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