Ihab Saad – Hazcom Hazard Communication

Music. Welcome to a new safety class, and today we're going to

talk about Hazard Communication. What exactly are hazards and how

do they need to be communicated, and what are going to be the modes

or the tools for this communication?

The purpose of this subchapter or subpart is to make sure that the

hazards of chemicals are evaluated and that information concerning

their hazards is communicated to employers and employees so no one

would be exposed by mistake.

Here are some examples of major accidents that happened due to

chemicals and how they affected the surrounding environment in

1978 20,000 tons of 240

different chemicals stored at a dump in New York City were dumped

in a canal, which resulted in birth defects, miscarriages and

cancer that were reported since this canal was used for water, for

potable water, drinking water, 900 families were relocated. So you

can see that it has a major effect on the surrounding environment.

In another accident, 1983 a worker died on February 10, 1983 while

cleaning out a tank containing sodium cyanide, which is

poisonous. Three managers were prosecuted by Cook County State's

Attorney. Two received 18 month sentences for manslaughter.

Again in Chicago in 1983 several workers reported being sick from

vapors from wire coating extrusion process, OSHA determined that

there was an overexposure to phenol and xylene in 1989 in the

Illinois Supreme Court allows five executives to stand trial for

aggravated battery, for job related injuries to their

employees. So you can see there's a criminal charge for that.

So this standard, the has come or hazard communication standard, was

ordered by Congress several several states enacted their own

right to know law for anyone who's going to be dealing with a

chemical that's the determined to be hazardous. Chemical

manufacturers wanted one uniform law versus very various state

laws. Because again, if you're going to be working in a state and

you're not quite familiar with that law, you might

accidentally do a violation of that law. So it would better be if

it's just one law governing all states, one federal law.

So what makes a chemical hazardous? Why would it be

hazardous? In general, it's if it becomes a health hazard or a

physical hazard or a biological hazard. So these are the different

three different types of hazards that can make a chemical

hazardous.

When we talk about the chemical exposure, we talk about two

different issues, severity and duration. Some chemicals are going

to be not are not going to be that hazardous if the duration of

exposure is going to be very limited, whereas some of them are

going to be hazardous even with a very short exposure. So acute

effects usually occur rapidly as a result of short term exposures and

are of short duration, so acute, causing severe pain or severe

symptoms for a very short period of time due to very short term

exposure, whereas chronic, which is the more dangerous, effects

generally occur as a result of long term exposure and of long

duration. That's why they're called chronic

so one of the first types of hazards is corrosive hazard, and

it shows visible destruction or irreversible damage to body

tissue. We can cite, for example, acids as being corrosive

and caustics or bases, some of them are also very corrosive.

And then another type of hazard here is going to be toxicity,

toxic and highly toxic. It can cause death or serious injury from

a single exposure, if it's highly toxic

by ingestion, if that's going to be by swallowing that poisonous or

toxic material, by dermal contact over the skin, or mists or vapors.

Exposure to mist or vapor, as we have seen in that accident that

was cited at the very beginning,

highly toxic means that a small dose can cause severe effects, so

toxic and high toxic can cause all of these effects. But highly toxic

in a very small dose can cause these severe effects.

Toxic, larger dose, again, is going to cause severe effects,

an irritant.

It's not as hazardous as a toxic or corrosive, but still, it causes

a hazard. It's not a corrosive causes reversible inflammatory

effect, so it can cause inflammation to the eyes or

inflammation to the skin or to any other membrane. So but these are

reversible, they can be cured and reversed,

another major hazard is resulting from fire and explosion. So we're

going to talk about explosion and flammability scale. We have

something called L E, L, which is the lower explosive limit, and

Uel, which is the upper explosive limit. Now looking at a mixture

between a gas

or a mist or a vapor and the air. So in this case, is going to be

the fuel.

If it's 0% fuel, 100% air, of course there's nothing, not

nothing's going to happen if it's a lot of air and

or a lot of fuel and not too much air,

lot of fuel and not too much air. And by air here we mean primarily

oxygen, then it's going to be too lean to burn.

So it's not going to burn. If it does not have oxygen enough, it's

not going to burn. And beyond that, we're going to have the

lower explosive limit.

On the other hand, on the other extreme, if the mixture is too

rich, if it's 100% fuel with no air, no oxygen whatsoever, it's

not going to burn.

So in this case, it's going to be too rich to burn. So we have two

extremes, too lean to burn, or too rich to burn. Too lean, which is

lot, lot of oxygen, but not much fuel. Too rich, too much fuel, not

much oxygen. And that would be the upper explosive limit in between.

That's going to be the danger zone. That's going to be the

flammable range where we have enough mixture of oxygen and the

fuel and that can cause the burning, or can cause the

explosion in some cases.

So again, it's only combustible between the LEL lower explosive

limit and UEL upper explosive, explosive limit. But any

concentration of combustible gas should be a concern, because it

can start accumulating until it reaches the the lower exposure

explosive, explosive limit. Lean mixtures can collect in an area

and reach a combustible level. Or rich mixtures can be diluted with

air to become combustible, so we do not want any accumulation

whatsoever.

How are we going to communicate these hazards? They're going to be

communicated through several vehicles, including the Material

Safety Data Sheet, or MSDS. Remember that acronym, MSDs,

Material Safety Data Sheet. It can also we convey through labels on

the different containers, for example, through a written program

which explains in detail what are going to be the hazards of

exposure to this chemical. And we have to train the employees, so

that's another tool for hazard communication, by showing them

pictures, by showing them the actual product, and by training

them on how to protect themselves against exposure and what to do in

case of exposure,

the major points of HazCom or hazards communication is employees

must know the hazards of chemicals, such as toxicity and if

They are carcinogenic, which means causing cancer. Many employees use

dangerous chemicals without personal protective equipment, and

that would be a mistake. The contractor must have data sheets

of other employers chemicals if their own employees are exposed.

If you remember, at the very beginning of this

learning process about safety. We talked about

the different types of employers. We talked about creating or

causing. We talked about exposing, we talked about controlling. We

talked about all of these different four types of of of

employers. So the correcting is the fourth one. So in this case,

if you are a an exposing contractor, where you're not the

causing or creating, but you are an exposing contractor. Your

employees are going to be exposed to the hazards caused by another

contractor. You have to train your employees on recognizing these

hazards and how to deal with

them. Employees are required to provide information to their

employees about the hazardous chemicals to which they are

exposed using Hazard Communication program, labels and other forms of

warnings and Material Safety Data Sheets and information and

training. So these are basically going to be the tools for an

employer to communicate.

That chemical, they have to label that containers. And once these

containers are brought to the site, you have to make sure that

this label remains intact. And if it gets damaged, you have to

replace it with another label with the same information.

There are some exemptions for portable containers, the employer

is not required to label portable containers into which hazardous

chemicals are transferred from labeled containers and which are

intended only for the immediate use by the employee who performs

the transfer. Sometimes you might have a gas can, for example, when

you are if your car runs out of gas, and you have those red gas

cans. You don't find the label on this gas can. It's already known

by shape and by size and so on that this contains gas, so people

are going to pay attention. But in this case, you're not going to

store gas in that can for a long period of time. You're just going

to need it to refill your tank. So in this case, is immediate use by

the person who performs the transfer.

Now here we have a problem. Here we have some gas cans that have

been stored. Here we have a container that's not labeled,

that's not even covered, so no one knows exactly what's in that

container, and it doesn't seem to be for immediate use, so that

would be a violation.

Hazard Assessment is going to be done through one of three

different ways, D O T classes. D O T is the Department of

Transportation, not just dot, it's D O T Department of

Transportation, classes, NFPA, National Fire Protection Agency or

association 704, diamond, we're going to talk about that in more

detail. And HMIs, Hazard Management Information System

labeling. So we're going to look at all of these three different

systems.

The first one is with the D O, T classes, classes of hazardous

materials. You're gonna notice these, by the way, if you are

driving on a highway behind the truck that carries a hazardous

material, you're gonna find some labels on that truck that show

exactly what kind of chemical is it carrying, whether it's fuel,

whether it's another chemical, and so on and so forth. So the hazard

class of Dangerous Goods is indicated either by its class name

or division number. There are nine different classes.

So the first one is explosives. You're going to find that sign on

the truck showing that it's explosive and it's six divisions,

1.1 to 1.6

the second one is gasses. That's another one here. Three divisions,

2.1 to 2.3 and that's the symbol for it. It's a flammable gas. The

third one is Flammable and combustible liquids. So that's

even more dangerous, and now it carries number three. It has a

category on its own.

Class four is flammable solids, which has three divisions, 4.1 to

4.3 all under class four. Class five is oxidizers and organic

peroxides, which has two divisions, 5.1 and 5.2

number six is poisons. That's quite rare to see on the truck,

but again, it may exist there, and it has two divisions, 6.1 and 6.2

class seven, radioactive material. And that's a class on its own,

class seven, class eight, corrosives and class nine,

miscellaneous. It's still something that would not classify

under any of these eight classes, but it still has this material. So

in this case, it would be miscellaneous. So

the National Fire Protection Association known as NFPA 704,

diamond lists hazards of material when exposed to fire conditions.

So if they are exposed to fire, what's going to happen? Are they

going to emit fumes, or are they going to Expo explode? Are they

going to be inert, or they're going to remain intact? So we need

to know about that. And this is basically the NFPA diamond. You

can also see these on many trucks. So whether it's going to cause in

case of fire, how is it going to behave in case of what is the

health risk, any special hazard, and if it's going to be reactive,

reactivity,

so something like that, for example, it has 231, and w, which

means it's a fire hazard. Flash points is number two.

Is dangerous in such and such way, and if exposed, use the following

precautions, things like that.

For the employee information and training, employers must provide

employees with information and training on hazardous chemicals in

their work area at the time of their initial assignment, once

they get to the job, and whenever a new chemical or health hazard

the employees have not previously been trained about is introduced

into their work area. So each time a new hazard occurs or is about to

occur, you have to train your employees on how to identify it,

how to recognize it, and how to protect against it and how to

remedy it. In case of exposure,

training may cover categories of hazard, the different categories

that we talked about, including the classes, the DoD classes,

including the NFPA and the HMIs and so on.

Employers must inform employees of the location and availability of

the list of hazardous chemicals. Where would you find this

information? Usually in the Material Safety Data Sheets. And

the location and availability of Material Safety Data Sheets.

Employee Training shall include at least this is the minimum in a

training program for the employees methods and observations that may

be used to detect the presence or release of a hazardous chemical in

the work area, whether it's by color, whether it's by smell,

whether it's by any other symptom of exposure the physical and

health hazards of chemicals in the work area. So what's the effect of

that chemical? Measures employees can take to protect themselves,

and details of the employer's specific program. What is the

employer going to provide to protect against this export?

So this is our

presentation today about Hazard Communication. As you can see,

it's a very important topic, and many contractors get cited for not

having a clear training program, or not having up to date Material

Safety Data Sheets, or not having proper labeling on the containers

for the different chemicals and so on and so forth. I hope you stay

safe.