Australia's Science Forum

Is it hazardous or not ?
Chemwatch has it as Hazardous with the GHS warning and corrosive symbols .
MSDS from nearly every supplier has it as Not classified as hazardous .

I have Calcium carbonate powder and marble chips .
Chemwatch seems to also want to lump the two as calcium carbonate .

CSIS has marble chips and calcium carbonate as non hazardous.

To fit a Chemwatch GHS label or not ?

Calcium Carbonate is classed as non Classificated by the CSIS, why would chemwatch put corrosive on it. Sounds a little silly to me. If you are a DoE school you must go by your bible the CSIS.

It really is silly labbie .
next on the list calcium sulphate ....again nearly every supplier has it as non hazardous but chemwatch has a warning on it and several supplier MSDS link to the chemwatch SDS .

I realise we must obey the CSIS , but I thought that DoE schools had to use chemwatch , hence the confusion .

So true Bigmack, it makes so very hard for the new labbies, wish chemwatch would get in tune with the CSIS or perhaps the other way around.

The ultimate decider on the classification of a chemical is the safety data sheet from the supplier. Chemwatch SDSs are not recognised by legislation. I am not in a DET school, but from the outside I would be concerned about relying on CSIS unless it is updated regularly.
And Chemwatch is probably not interested in CSIS - schools are a small part of their business.
I do not trust Chemwatch for labelling due to the problems with their source information, as you've discovered.

Chemwatch was linked to the CSIS way back in 1999, and chemwatch took on the legislation of the CSIS, so we as labbies had some one or a company to help us with SDS and labels. The CSIS is updated regularly perhaps many schools have the paper copy, the CSIS site was updated in June 2016.

As I said, not a DET school so we don't have access to anything other than the original paper copy of CSIS - so no updates for us. Good to hear that you have access to something that is current. We should all only do what those-greater-than-us tell us to do!

Labbie, do you have a link where the 2016 CSIS can be looked at?
I heard the new one is coming out before Jan 2017

Thanks heaps - have bookmarked it