How to comply to the OSHA HazCom 2012 Standard
The Globally Harmonized System (GHS) is an international system that the United Nations created for the unified classification and labeling of chemicals. It was officially adopted in the U.S. on March 26, 2012 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA's adoption of the GHS is actually a revision of the Hazard Communication Standard designed to align with the GHS. It's called HazCom 2012.
A written HazCom plan that documents and outlines how your company responds to hazardous chemicals is required in order to comply with OSHA's 29 CFR 1910.1200(e) regulation for Hazard Communication. Tracking, maintaining and managing your chemical inventory is crucial to your HazCom plan and GHS compliance. In order to maintain a successful plan, you must keep your inventory organized and updated.
Labeling is the cornerstone of GHS compliance. With an emphasis on consistency and comprehension of chemical labels, it is important to know what goes into a GHS compliant label for primary and secondary containers. There are six key GHS label elements that you need to know.
The signal word indicates hazard level. "Danger" is used for the most severe instances, while "Warning" is less severe. View our GHS Signal Words guide.
This identifies the manufacturer's company name, address and telephone number.
These are phrases that are tied to each hazard statement. They describe general preventive, response, storage or disposal precautions. These statements are found on the chemical's Safety Data Sheet. Similar to Hazard Statements, Precautionary Statements can be identified by a P-Code (like P100).
These are phrases that describe the nature of hazardous products and the degree of hazard. Hazard statements are on the chemical's Safety Data Sheet (SDS) and identified by an H-Code (like H100). View our GHS Hazard Statements guide.
This identifies the product or chemical name. Additional identifiers can be noted to the right of the Manufacturer's information (#1).
Since the implementation of the GHS in 2012, we've been collecting frequently asked questions from our customers and during our webinars. Our experts have answered the most commonly asked questions and put them all in one place.