Self-Inspection Topic for Quarter 2, 2006
Hazardous Materials and Waste Inspection Preparation
The Lab and Shop Inspection form has questions on general safety, hazardous materials and waste, and a quarterly topic. For Quarter 2, 2006, the special health and safety topic is Hazardous Materials and Waste Inspection Preparation. Work with the Compliance Assistance Program (CAP) team member for your building or contact our office for assistance on preparing for inspections.
Does the chemical inventory posted in the life safety box "reasonably" represent the materials stored in your laboratory?
Has your lab checked ALL chemical storage locations including personal lab benches, fumehoods, refrigerators, under sinks, chemical storage cabinets to verify that hazardous materials are properly labeled with full chemical names?
Is your lab also checking "shared" work and storage locations such as cold/constant temperature, fumehood, common equipment and/or dark rooms?
Are all containers segregated and secondarily contained to prevent unwanted reactions while in storage? (i.e. Following the Stanford compatible storage group classification system is a good guide for storing compatible oxidizers including peroxides (storage group E), and pyrophoric and water reactive materials (B), Materials that are incompatible with all other storage groups are designated as storage group X .
Are all members of your lab familiar with where to find storage group information?
- Hazardous Materials Inventory sheet in Life Safety Box
- In ChemTracker, "Reference" tab, "MSDS" link
Are all members of your lab able to locate Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for the hazardous materials used in their research experiments?
- In ChemTracker, select "MSDS" under the "Reference" tab.
Are gas cylinders stored in labs and other hazardous materials storage locations reported in ChemTracker?
- Gas cylinders are probably the largest single container of hazardous materials in your lab or shared work area; don't forget to report it!
Are gas cylinders properly stored with valve covers in place, two sets of chains at 1/3 and 2/3 height, and only two cylinders "nested" together at any time?
Are all lab personnel working with hazardous materials familiar with the hazardous properties and proper disposal for waste generated by their research experiments?
Does your lab have a process for "checking out" when staff or students relocate to a new lab or leave Stanford?
- This is an opportunity to clean out a vacated work space and check that chemical waste forms have been submitted and containers properly disposed of by the researcher generating the waste!
Is your lab staff familiar with online resources such as SafetyTrain or the compliance videos?
- EHS has developed a series of compliance videos that are great reminders of proper practices!
Have all the areas above been inspected by your lab members and correction(s) completed and documented?
- Stanford's committment to self-inspect work areas is verified during regulatory inspections; make sure that the process is completed and records indicating corrections are documented!
- Share self-inspection findings during regular lab meetings. Check with our office about scheduling monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual meetings for updates on health and safety-related topics.
- Use the "Comments & Additional Findings" area to document follow-up on corrections for violations noted during regulatory inspections.
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