Following Up On GHS — What’s Next? The worker training deadline for GHS has passed, but more changes lie ahead. W By: Scott Warrington for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Safety . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select DIRECTORY from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Chemicals . GHS hopes to provide a basic framework for many countries that had no regulation for label-ing, packaging and shipping of chemical products. 32 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • January 2014 Image courtesy of YanLev/iStock/Thinkstock Scott Warrington has more than 40 years of experience in the carpet cleaning industry and related fields. He serves as the technical support special-ist for Bridgepoint Systems and Interlink Supply. He can be contacted at ScottW@ Bridgepoint.com. World peace seems less likely with each passing day, but global harmony is coming. The Globally Harmonized System (GHS) for la-beling, listing and classifying chemical hazards was developed by the United Nations with input from many countries, including the U.S. Although this process began in 1992, it has only recently begun to be implemented. For the U.S., in March 2012, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) pub-lished notice of revision of its Hazard Communica-tion Standard to conform to GHS. GHS covers physical safety, health and environ-mental hazards. Prior to international acceptance of GHS, there was a myriad of standards in countries across the globe. This made it difficult for manufacturers and ship-pers to carry on chemical sales in other countries where a product might need to be labeled differ-ently in every country. In addition, to the goal of eliminating this confu-sion, GHS hopes to provide a basic framework for many countries that had no regulation for labeling, packaging and shipping of chemical products. It is hoped this will provide greater safety and protection for citizens of those countries. Another goal of GHS is to reduce product test-ing, especially on animals. Thus, if a specific mixture of ingredients has not been tested, rather than requiring the new com-bination to be tested, the classifications of the in-dividual ingredients will be considered even if the mixture is diluted with an ingredient known to be less hazardous, such as water. The information will target numerous groups including manufacturers, distributors, transporta-tion companies, employers and employees who use chemical products, emergency responders, consumers and the public. Who Will Be Affected? The first group affected by the implementation of GHS was employers. No later than December 1, 2013, all employees should have received training to understand new product labels and Safety Data Sheets (SDS, for-merly known as MSDS). The training requirement applied to both full-time and part-time employees if they use or work in a facility where chemicals are used. OSHA provided information on what the training should include as well as sample labels and SDS to use in training. This training should have included an explanation of the standardized 16 sections that will be included
CMM – Archives January 2014: 32
