Fifth Week Experience (Day 1)-February 8th

This week I needed to complete the Hazardous Materials Training. This training involved going through a power point presentation that detailed the regulations of Case Western Reserve University.

We learned that the Hazardous Communication Standard requires every chemical used in a lab situation to be accounted for by keeping an updated list of the chemical name and manufacturer that is available to every person in the department as well as the university's Environmental Health Services (EHS) department. It also includes data safety sheets for each item that lists the health and physical hazards the chemical presents.

Interestingly enough, most businesses should include some use of the Hazardous Communication Standard. The reason why is that even simple cleaning solutions, when kept in mass, present a health hazard. This is why soap has a warning label with a list of ingredients. Quantity necessitates the need to regulate the products carried by a department.

We also learned the NFPA (Nation Fire Protection Agency) hazard identification system warning signs, which is set up in a diamond that has for sides indicating what hazard a material presents. The options are red for fire, yellow for unstable or reactive materials, white for do not use water on, and blue for health hazards. There are three types of hazards: bio hazards (affects blood and tissues), flamboyant solutions (includes alcohols), and toxic chemicals (harmful to general health).

A few of the topics we covered are situations that the EHS department can deal with, such as testing of economic equipment for physical strain to the body. In the case of an emergency, you should always call protective services because their response time is quickest.

We also discussed the techniques for smelling a chemical for identification. You never smell directly, you always waft the chemical smell away from the container. It is necessary to be aware of all potential hazardous tools you may have around you, not just chemicals. Compressed gasses, such as those in small air cans are strong enough to blow out windows in cars. Any heat or sunlight can cause an explosion and projectile.

In cases where your department uses sharp materials (which preservation does), it is important to have a container to collect them. Practically any container that can be kept lidded may be used for this purpose: jug, coffee container, glass jar, or a safety container (red rigid sharp container) can be purchased.

There are also other personal safety techniques that can be used, such as washing nails because they carry germs and coughing and sneezing into your elbow. When using chemicals in labs that do not have a chemical hood or glove box, be sure to exercise time constraint to minimize exposure, be neat, and change gloves/wash hands every half hour in case of a tear in the gloves. When managing chemicals make sure that each label on the container matches what is inside, including when using recycled containers-black out the original information.

These resources (such as the Material Safety Data Sheet) can be found on Case's website. All the information I covered above and more, should be on this website: https://www.case.edu/ehs/. The training session ended at noon.