The supplier (not the manufacturer) is legally required to give you the safety data sheet on request.

My experience is that they will often do so, either through an automated service or by email, but the one they give you has been superseded some time ago by one you can find on the manufacturer's website (often only after registering for this service).

I have even seen a disclaimer on a supplier's website stating that the SDS they provide may not be the most up to date one from the manufacturer!

I always scrutinise the date and what standard and jurisdiction it pertains to.

Edited by user 14 November 2023 11:15:31(UTC)  | Reason: I 'scutinised' my typing

You are absolutely right Kate that it should be the supplier who provides the SDS but my experience is the same as yours.

It seems to have gotten worse over the years.  25+ years ago I worked in a product development lab and MSDS were no problem then as you recieved them with every single order of any chemical.  We also produced and sent them with every single sample product sent out.

Originally Posted by: Holliday42333

I'm not looking for anything particularly exotic but manufacturer websites tend to have technical data sheets but not safety data sheets.

There is a specific obligation under EU (UK) REACH where a Safety Data Sheet has to be "made available".

In their deliberations the Member States decided that having a Safety Data Sheet posted to a web site was "passive distribution" which failed the test of making available.

At the same time we also had the delights of GDPR seeing mailing lists destroyed so as not to be seen holding "personal data" on people outside of the company.

Most compliant suppliers tend to end up attaching SDS to either shipping documents or invoices to suit their business management systems which unfortunately could result in the SDS being in another country to the person requiring its content (let alone another office on site). Here educating goods inwards and accounts can prove beneficial to having SDS internally re-directed rather than just filed with the notes they are attached to.

So we end up at the current situation where distributors have out of date documents appended openly to their web site and the manufacturers requiring those seeking documents to log-in so they have a record of actual transmission.

Personally I prefer direct contact especially where manufacturers have product variants around a theme.