The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sets standards for facilities to abide by to assure safe and healthy conditions in the working environment. While their mission is straightforward, sometimes organizations can overlook particular standards and not realize certain regulations exist or who they might affect.
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For the purpose of this post, please be aware that a "potentially hazardous work area" is defined as "any area where hazardous substances (e.g. hazardous chemicals, biohazardous agents, compressed gases) or physical hazards (e.g. moving machine parts, extreme temperatures, electrical apparatus) are present."
During school breaks, it's not uncommon for universities to allow visitors to use their laboratory facilities. This could range from passive tours to active research projects, and even include high schools that have classes held in university labs. In the event that there are visitors using your university's labs, there are important guidelines to establish and recommended best practices to follow to ensure visitors' safety while in potentially hazardous areas on campus.
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The laboratory is an environment of innovation and discovery, but if risk isn’t managed properly, it can also be a dangerous place where employees are incessantly exposed to possible injury. To maintain health and safety in your labs, energetic materials such as dinitro, trintro compounds, peroxide formers, flammables, organic peroxides, oxidizers, pyrophorics, unstable reactives, and water-reactive solids and liquids must all be managed carefully and ultimately disposed of by high-hazard experts. The improper storage and handling of high-hazard chemicals in laboratories causes accidents to occur – a crystal forms in direct sunlight, or an uncapped bottle is exposed to air, and an explosion happens. An incident like this threatens the lives of your employees, the integrity of your equipment and research, and the liability of your organization.
Tags: high-hazard management, lab safety. laboratory safety, chemical management, hazardous material management, hazmat management, hazmat handling
