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"Laboratory Safety Guidelines" were written by
Dr. James A. Kaufman while he worked for the Dow Chemical Company in an
attempt to share with schools, colleges, and universities what he was
learning about lab safety. In 1976, Dow sent copies to 2,000
colleges and university chemistry departments and received requests for
250,000 reprints! In 1986, he assisted Dow with a revision of the
guidelines. Dow sent this version to 10,000 high school chemistry
teachers. Since then, over two million copies have been distributed and
reprinted in various forms.
The Laboratory Safety
Institute (LSI) collaborated with both Carolina Biological Supply Company to
produce a 2-foot by 3-foot, four-color poster version; and with Fisher
Science Education to create both a condensed safety tips version and an
attractive wall poster. More than 15,000 copies have been distributed.
LSI offers these
suggestions for improving laboratory safety because we believe that having an
understanding of inherent hazards and learning how to be safe should be an
integral and important part of science education, work, and life.
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Steps Requiring Minimal Expense
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1. Have a written health, safety
and environmental affairs (HS&E) policy statement.
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2. Organize a departmental
HS&E committee of employees, management, faculty, staff and students
which will meet regularly to discuss HS&E issues.
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3. Develop an HS&E
orientation for all new employees and students.
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4. Encourage employees and
students to care about their health and safety and that of others.
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5. Involve every employee and
student in some aspect of the safety program and give each specific responsibilities.
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6. Provide incentives to
employees and students for safety performance.
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7. Require all employees to read
the appropriate safety manual. Require students to read the institution's
laboratory safety rules. Have both groups sign a statement that they have
done so, understand the contents, and agree to follow the procedures and
practices. Keep these statements on file in the department office.
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8. Conduct periodic, unannounced
laboratory inspections to identify and correct hazardous conditions and
unsafe practices. Involve students and employees in simulated OSHA
inspections.
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9. Make learning how to be safe
an integral and important part of science education, your work, and your
life.
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10. Schedule regular
departmental safety meetings for all students and employees to discuss the
results of inspections and aspects of laboratory safety.
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11. Require every pre-lab/pre-experiment
discussion to include consideration of the health and safety aspects.
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12. Forbid working alone in any
laboratory and working without prior knowledge of a staff member.
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13. Don't allow experiments to
run unattended unless they are failsafe.
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14. When conducting experiments
with hazards or potential hazards, ask yourself these questions:
- What
are the hazards?
- What
are the worst possible things that could go wrong?
- How
will I deal with them?
- What
are the prudent practices, protective facilities and equipment
necessary to minimize the risk of exposure to the hazards?
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15. Require that all accidents
(incidents) be reported, evaluated by the departmental safety committee,
and discussed at departmental safety meetings.
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16. Extend the safety program
beyond the laboratory to the automobile and the home.
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17. Allow only minimum amounts
of flammable liquids in each laboratory.
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18. Forbid smoking, eating and
drinking in the laboratory.
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19. Do no allow food to be stored
in chemical refrigerators.
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20. Develop plans and conduct
drills for dealing with emergencies such as fire, explosion, poisoning,
chemical spill or vapor release, electric shock, bleeding and personal
contamination.
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21. Display the phone numbers of
the fire department, police department, and local ambulance either on or
immediately next to every phone.
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22. Store acids and bases
separately. Store fuels and oxidizers separately.
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23. Maintain a chemical inventory
to avoid purchasing unnecessary quantities of chemicals.
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24. Use warning signs to
designate particular hazards.
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25. Require good housekeeping
practices in all work areas.
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26. Develop specific work
practices for individual experiments, such as those that should be
conducted only in a ventilated hood or involve particularly hazardous
chemicals. When possible most hazardous experiments should be done in a
hood.
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Steps Requiring Moderate Expense
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27. Allocate a portion of the
departmental budget to safety.
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28. Require the use of
appropriate eye protection at all times -- in laboratories and areas
where chemicals are transported.
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29. Provide adequate supplies of
personal protective equipment -- safety glasses, goggles, face shields,
gloves, lab coats, and bench top shields.
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30. Provide fire extinguishers,
safety showers, eye wash fountains, first aid kits, fire blankets and fume
hoods in each laboratory and test or check monthly.
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31. Maintain a centrally located
departmental safety library:
- "Safety
in Academic Chemistry Laboratories" American Chemical Society,
1155 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036
- "Fire
Protection Guide on Hazardous Materials" National Fire Protection
Association, Batterymarch Park, Quincy, MA
02269
- "Manual
of Safety and Health Hazards in the School Science Laboratory"
- "Safety
in the School Science Laboratory"
- "School
Science Laboratories: A guide to some Hazardous Substances" Council
of State Science Supervisors, Route 2, Box 637, Lancaster VA 22503
- "Handbook
of Laboratory Safety", 4th edition, CRC Press, 2000 Corporate
Boulevard, N.W., Boca Raton, FL 33431
- "Prudent
Practices in the Laboratory: Handling and Disposal of Hazardous Chemicals",
2nd Edition, 1995
- "Biosafety in the Laboratory", National
Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20418
- "Safety
in School Science Labs", Clair Wood, 1994, Kaufman &
Associates, 192 Worcester Road, Natick, MA 01760
- "The
Laboratory Safety Pocket Guide", 1996, Genium
Publisher, 1 Genium Plaza, Schnectady, NY
- "Learning
By Accident", volume 1, 1997, The Laboratory Safety Workshop,
Natick, MA 01760
(All
of these books are available from The Laboratory Safety Institute)
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32. Provide guards on all vacuum
pumps and secure all compressed gas cylinders.
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33. Provide an appropriate
supply of first aid equipment and instruction on its proper use.
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34. Remove all electrical
connections from inside chemical refrigerators and require magnetic
closures.
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35. Require grounded plugs on
all electrical equipment and install ground fault interrupters (GFI's)
where appropriate.
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36. Label all chemicals to show the
name of the material, the nature and degree of hazard, the appropriate
precautions, and the name of the person responsible for the container.
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37. Develop a program for dating
stored chemicals and for re-certifying or discarding them after predetermined
maximum periods of storage.
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38. Develop a system for the
legal, safe and ecologically acceptable disposal of chemical wastes.
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39. Provide fireproof cabinets
for storage of flammable chemicals.
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40. Provide secure, adequately spaced,
well ventilated storage of chemicals.
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