Australia's Science Forum

Does your school required risk assessments on all hazardous chemicals/DG themselves (not just RA's on pracs) and if so would anyone mind sharing an example? I am currently reviewing our schools Haz Chem and DG management procedure (actually rewriting it would be a better description ) and wanted to know what a RA on an actual chemical would look like. I am assuming this would apply to departments other than science and our prac RA's include it.

Cheers,
Lisa

I'm in Catholic system we are using RiskAssess and had an external W. H. & S audit over the Christmas break. The science Chemical manifest has to have the date of each chemical risk assessment included on it. I have printed out a risk assessment for each chemical from the risk assessment program. You can do each chemical separately from doing practical risk assessments.

Interesting that a lot of chemicals are now listed as teacher only, to coincide with the changes GHS

linotas , if you are a public school then CSIS is a risk assessment that should be enough .

CSIS is not useful for linotas as she is in Tasmania!

Hi Linotas
I have never done individual risk assessments on chemicals in my school job, only relying on RAs for pracs (or prep room procedures, such as making solutions). However, in the nursery industry I did do these. A few years ago now, but I remember basing them mostly on the SDS. So ended up being a summary of the SDS. Sorry, I can't give you an example but I can tell you it was a very simple document as not all people using pesticides in the nursery were qualified. It listed the hazards and their risk rating before control measures were in place and the measures to take to reduce the risk of these hazards with the new risk rating noted once the control measures were implemented. Sorry - not sounding very clear, bit busy at the moment. PM if you need more help.

Seems a bit like re-inventing the wheel when we pay annual subscriptions to ChemWatch and RiskAssess for this very information?

macca wrote:I'm in Catholic system we are using RiskAssess and had an external W. H. & S audit over the Christmas break. The science Chemical manifest has to have the date of each chemical risk assessment included on it. I have printed out a risk assessment for each chemical from the risk assessment program. You can do each chemical separately from doing practical risk assessments.

Interesting that a lot of chemicals are now listed as teacher only, to coincide with the changes GHS

I am in the catholic system in Qld (BCE) and we have a template for risk assessments for individual chemicals. I haven't done many yet as it is quite a big job and we do have SDS for all of them and also do individual risk assessments on all our experiments. However, it is largely looking at how often a chemical is used, by how many people, what the exposure is like and what controls are in place. So I don't know if the information off RiskAssess would replace this. The info on there is more like a mini mini SDS. I do like the fact that it has the intended users on there so you can see if it appropriate for a particular year level.
Linotas, do you want me to send you the BCE template. I don't really like it but it may give you some ideas of what they are looking for. PM me if you do.

Thanks all. It is more for the non science departments who use hazardous chemicals. DesTech has some real issues with some of the stuff they use and find it an uphill battle to make sure everyone is on the same page. The idea of a document listing hazards and ways to reduce the risk sounds like the plan.

Riskassess now has

4 August 2017 - Stocktaking & Usage Downloads
You can now download a report on your usage of chemicals, equipment and living things. The report is in CSV format for use in Excel, and covers the last 3 years. It includes how many times the item was used, and the date of last use. To access, click the "Tools" (cog icon) at the top right of your home page, and scroll down.
Note that the "Settings" cog has been renamed "Tools" to better indicate the range of functions available.

could come in handy too

Thanks Macca, I hadn't seen that update! Just checked it out, looks like it could be useful.

I missed it too. Will be very handy to keep track of which chemicals we NEED to keep, and which can slowly be disposed of.

Thanks for sharing that Macca. I had missed reading the "news". Interesting to see how many pracs have been ordered all year.