quirements were expanded to cover more products in more industries. With the new program, the MSDS will be replaced with the SDS, designed to provide more consistent information organized in the same manner for all products. Information And Training: To facilitate recognition and understanding, employers are required to train workers on how to use the new labels and the new SDS format by December of this year. This means building service contractors and facility managers working with in-house cleaning crews will have to begin introduc-ing the new format soon. not only the ones to perform this training but the people who will be most effective at do-ing so,” Runge says. Next Steps The process of integrating HazCom with GHS has been under discussion for more than a decade. Originally the goal was to make the transi-tion by the year 2000. However, that proved far too optimistic. In addition to OSHA’s HazCom standards, the integration involves existing systems used in other countries such as Canada and the European Union, all of which had to be considered. However, synchronization has occurred. The program is about to be rolled out, and if industry leaders are correct, it will likely be in the best interest of everyone involved. CM Industry Thoughts On GHS As with any change, there have been those who believe the integration of HazCom with GHS is too sweeping, may be unnecessary or will end up costing manufacturers, busi-ness owners and managers more time and expense than OSHA anticipates. “However, ultimately standardizing haz-ard labels will be in the best interest of ev-eryone,” says Jennifer Meek, marketing director for Charlotte Products/Enviro-So-lutions, a chemical manufacturer based in Canada. “We are already marketing prod-ucts throughout the U.S., in Asia and [in] other parts of world. Having one set of stan-dards that [is] accepted globally will likely make compliance much easier for us and help promote safety.” Stephen Ashkin, long known as the “fa-ther of green cleaning,” suggests the new standards are one more step toward not only more precise labeling practices but also greater ingredient disclosure in chemi-cal products including cleaning chemicals. “If we can get manufacturers to disclose all chemical ingredients used in a product along with standardized labels and ter-minology, it really is in the best interest of everyone — the manufacturer, the user of the product and the professional cleaning industry,” Ashkin explains. As to the training of cleaning workers about the new standard, Leah Runge, mar-keting manager for AFFLINK’s eLev8 sys-tem believes a lot of this will become the responsibility of JanSan distributors. “It will likely be viewed as an add-on ser-vice facility maintenance distributors pro-vide their clients, and most likely they will be FREE INFO: Reader Service 213 or CMMOnline.com/freeinfo www.cmmonline.com 23
CMM – Archives November 2013: 23
