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OSHA Hazard Communication

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration's Hazard Communication Standard affects approximately 30 million U.S. workers. If you've ever come into contact with a material safety data sheet, you've encountered the Hazard Communication Standard, which was created to make workplaces safer by creating a standard method for communicating the hazards associated with chemicals used in the workplace.

  1. Purpose

    • The purpose of the Hazard Communication Standard, or HCS, is to protect workers in all industries from the effects of hazardous chemicals. The HCS informs workers of the chemicals with which they are working, the hazards associated with those chemicals and how to protect themselves.

    History

    • OSHA adopted the HCS for the manufacturing industry in 1983. It later expanded the scope of the standard to cover all industries in which employees may be exposed to hazardous chemicals. According to OSHA, the HCS now covers some 7 million businesses and 945,000 chemicals.

    The Impact

    • OSHA's hazard communication system requires manufacturers or importers of chemicals to evaluate the hazards of the chemicals they import or produce. The rule provides definitions for health and physical hazards used as criteria for determining hazards in the evaluation process. This information must then be made available "downstream" to those who come into contact with the chemicals.

    MSDS and Right to Know

    • Information about chemicals is provided in material safety data sheets. These papers must be sent with any chemical when it is transported. Businesses that routinely use a specific chemical are required to keep a chemical inventory and an MSDS for every chemical on site. If the business stops using that chemical, it must dispose of the MSDS. An MSDS communicates the hazards a chemical presents, such as whether it is an irritant or if it has noxious fumes. An MSDS must also communicate information such as flammability and the upper and lower explosive limits.

    The Larger Role of HCS

    • The United Nations led an international push to create the Globally Harmonized System of classifying chemicals. The effort envisions a system that would be used across all nations for communicating chemical hazards.

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