Australia's Science Forum

One of my teachers is making a polymer with borax and PVA. According to RiskAssess, borax is a teacher only chemical, while CSIS (really old, I know) says it's suitable for years 7-12.

we use it to make slime all the time

You can buy it over the counter for goodness sake!
Available in Coles!

I noticed this on RiskAssess today....seems the solid is teacher only and the dilute solution we use for making slime is OK for students in Yr 11 and 12.
The juniors are going to be cross!!

perhaps we need to contact Phil at RiskAssess to question him about this

This is an interesting one!
This is the response my friend received from Phil.

Borax is now strongly suspected of being teratogenic.
The GHS hazard statement is
"May damage fertility. May damage the unborn child".
This is the higher of the two warning levels (the other is "Suspected of damaging fertility and the unborn child")

Since some female students (and staff!) are of reproductive age, we give the additional warning in "Standard handling procedures":
"Should not be handled by pregnant women. Women of reproductive age should avoid handling the chemical."

This safety information was not available 17 years ago when the CSIS was issued.
The fundamental problem is that the CSIS is very out-of-date.

Since the advice "Teacher only" is not the same as the original CSIS, we have placed the code in brackets so you can easily see that this is the case:
(Tch)
This is explained in the online help section by clicking on the underlined (linked) text for "(Tch)".

Information in RiskAssess is only advisory.
It is up to the school staff to decide on matters of chemical usage and take responsibility for it.
The critical issue is to carry out a risk assessment and put in place appropriate control measures.

Regards

Phillip

I also emailed Phil Crisp - poor man he will be getting lots of queries today!

I will bring this to the attention of the teacher involved - she IS of a child bearing age.
But doesn't the fact that she didn't pick up on this herself show that the Risk Assessment wasn't even read????

I've just pointed it out to her, and she's not impressed. She's been doing this prac for years and NOW they tell her. But no comment on the fact that she didn't see it herself.

Whspa wrote:I will bring this to the attention of the teacher involved - she IS of a child bearing age.
But doesn't the fact that she didn't pick up on this herself show that the Risk Assessment wasn't even read????

I've just pointed it out to her, and she's not impressed. She's been doing this prac for years and NOW they tell her. But no comment on the fact that she didn't see it herself.

If I had a dollar for every time I've noticed a teacher has not read the risk assessment, I wouldn't need to buy a lotto ticket.

I have also been made aware of this recently.
it was from the labbies forum;

"Check out riskassess for borax, it is now only to be used for grade 11-12, the solid is teacher use only.
I little while ago I contacted RiskAssess about the new GHS symbols because the ChemWatch and RiskAssess classification were different. They told me that they use ECHA’s data base (European chemical agency), which is supported by the UN. Here is the link what they have to say about Borax http://echa.europa.eu/substance-informa ... 00.014.129 according to them it is a substance of very high concern.
I have decided not to use it anymore, now I need to find a good alternative.
Does anyone have a good slime prac that does not use borax?"

Hope this helps.
Cathy

TAKEN FROM THE CSIS FOR ALL DoE SCHOOLS. Dept of Edu schools. Page 234 CSIS Green dot UN Cas No 1330-43-4 Moderately toxic if ingested. Used in borax bead test for cations. Disposal: Waste solutions of this chemical may be disposed of down the sink (To Sewer)

Sounds like Risk assess is a little out of line.

Cathy, we make slime using pysillium:

I contacted Phillip Crisp about lead nitrate. RiskAssess has it as teacher use only for 0.1M. CSIS has it as years 7-12. He replied that CSIS is 17 years old and now out of date and RiskAssess is current knowledge. We still use RiskAssess to do our experiments but when something is different - like lead nitrate - we add a note at the top of the document to show that the Teacher has assessed the risk using CSIS so if anything happens we can show our assessment was based on using the DofE package and not RiskAssess for that chemical. We will keep doing this until we get the new CSIS package.

Well done AnnNos that is just so correct. Mind you I taken until __________________ next year before the CSIS is corrected. But it is our Bible.