Material Safety Data Sheets

How many of you can say that you could handle a chemical emergency caused by your cleaning crew? Can you get to the information on whether a particular chemical is poisonous, acidic or alkali?

All of this information is contained in the material safety data sheet (MSDS) on each chemical in your inventory. Manufacturers are required to provide these free of charge and in a readily accessible manner.

More importantly, you the building or business owner are required by OSHA and CalOSHA to have complete sets located with each set of stored chemicals. Fortunately with the internet getting these has become very easy. You can find them on manufacturer’s websites and below is a fairly complete online database where you can look these up to heart’s content.

http://www.msdsprovider.com/1/provider/web_search

So your homework is to make a complete inventory of the chemicals you are using or have stored. Then look up and print out the matching MSDS pages and organize them into clearly labeled notebooks for each storage site. This is especially critical for food service areas as the local health inspector will certainly be looking for this book as well.

As always I appreciate your visit and your comments. If there is anything you would like to suggest for a topic drop my a note at: askthefm@gmail.com

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