Posted By D H
Check if they are listed in EH40.
If they are almost the same they will be grouped together and the WEl should be listed.

Dave

Posted By Chris Packham
A chemical is a hazard. The risk only arises when there is potential exposure, usually when the chemical is used for a particular purpose or process. Thus any risk assessment has to be based on:
(a) the potential of exposure occurring during the task,
(b) the actual nature of the chemical hazard present during that task.

Note that the nature of the hazard may not be what is on the safety data sheet. To go into all the details on this would be far beyond the scope of a posting on this forum.

Just to illustrate, however, you mention solvents. However, what you almost certainly will be dealing with is a mixture of solvents and paint. This can be quite a different hazard to the solvent and paint on their own, particularly where skin exposure is involved as the paint on its own might not be able to penetrate the skin, but dissolved in the solvent could easily get through.

You mention solvents. Presumably your workers will be wearing gloves. Different solvents require different gloves. For example a nitrile gauntlet may work well with white spirit but provide very little protection against xylene or toluene. Viton will work beautifully with xylene and toluene but is useless with acetone, for which you need butyl (which doesn't work with xylene or toluene). And manufacturers' published permeation breakthrough times do not indicate the useful life of a glove for a specific task.

If this seems complicated, it is because it is!

Chris