Safety Tip
What is Lockout/Tagout?
The premise is simple and straightforward- for example, say a tunnel washer needs servicing. Before the maintenance employee can begin work, he must make sure the equipment cannot be turned on.
Safety Tip
Made in the Shade: Beating Heat Strain
While hot working conditions are often just thought of as a discomfort, they are often overlooked as a workplace hazard.
Safety Tip
Testing and Monitoring for Anesthetic Gas Leaks and Exposures
OSHA recommends conducting air sampling for anesthetic gases every six months to evaluate worker exposures and to check the effectiveness of control measures. The three basic types of sampling are personal, area, and source sampling.
Safety Tip
What Are the Worst Possible Things that Could Go Wrong?
When conducting experiments with hazards or potential hazards, ask yourself these four questions.
Safety Tip
Forbid Working Alone in the Lab
Working alone is a bad idea. It's an open invitation to tragedy. The legal consequences can be equally serious.
Safety Tip
Schedule Regular Departmental Safety Meetings to Discuss the Results of Inspections and other Aspects of Laboratory Safety
Safety meetings are an integral part of a good safety program. You need to have a time when you and your colleagues can get together and focus on safety issues. Meetings that come as a follow-up on a regular safety inspection provide a good basis for discussion of problems and needs.
Safety Tip
Make Learning How to Be Safe an Integral and Important Part of the Science Education Process
For too many years at academic institutions and some companies, safety has been something extra. It's time that it became part of the process.
Safety Tip
Conduct Periodic, Unannounced Laboratory Inspections
Quarterly inspections are an integral part of a good safety program. They are conducted to ensure that the working and learning environment is safe and healthy for all.
Safety Tip
Require All Staff Members to Read and Sign a Statement of Safety Procedures
All staff members, as well as students, should be required to read the institution's lab safety rules. They should then sign a statement that they have read the rules, understand the content, and agree to follow the procedures and practices.
Safety Tip
Provide Incentives for Safety Performance
Everyone likes to receive a reward for good performance. It can be a merit raise, a promotion, or praise. Good performance deserves to be acknowledged and rewarded. Safety performance is no different. When it's done right, it should be recognized.
Safety Tip
Safety Is not a Spectator Sport
Involve every staff member in some aspect of the safety program and give each a specific responsibility. There's a tendency to think that if someone is appointed safety coordinator, they have to do all the work for the rest of us. False!
Safety Tip
Encourage Caring About One's Health and Safety
Employees, faculty, staff, and students need to be encouraged to develop a genuine concern about their own health and safety. It's too easy to care less and become careless.
Safety Tip
Develop a Safety Orientation Program
All new employees, students, faculty, and staff should receive a specially designed indoctrination to your safety program.
Safety Tip
Organize a Safety Committee
Your department should have a safety committee. Academic institutions and companies should all have safety committees. A safety committee should consist of employees, supervisors, faculty, staff, administration, and students. The committee should meet regularly to discuss safety, health, and environmental problems and to seek solutions to them.
Safety Tip
Have a Written Safety Policy
A written safety policy is the cornerstone of a good safety program. It's a statement endorsed and supported by the administration that speaks to the fundamental responsibilities for health and safety in the academic institution or company.
Safety Tip
Provide Secure, Adequately Spaced, Well Ventilated Storage of Chemicals
In academic institutions, the most serious issue is the restriction of access to hazardous chemicals to appropriate personnel.
Safety Tip
Provide Fireproof Cabinets for Storage of Flammable Chemicals
Flammable liquids should be stored in fireproof cabinets. The NFPA provides recommendations in codes 45 and 30 for the quantities of materials that should be stored in labs in and out of these cabinets.
Safety Tip
Develop a System for the Legal, Safe, and Ecologically Acceptable Disposal of Chemical Wastes
We recommend the establishment of a chemical management system. This system provides for the safe procurement, storage, use, and disposal of chemicals.
Safety Tip
Develop a Program for Dating Stored Chemicals and for Recertifying or Discarding Them After Predetermined Maximum Periods of Storage
Some chemicals have a short life expectancy. Others will remain good for a long time.
Safety Tip
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
Don't leave a booby trap for another person. Make sure that all containers are appropriately labeled. OSHA's hazard communication standard and lab standards require labeling of containers.
Safety Tip
Require Grounded Plugs On All Electrical Equipment and Install Ground Fault Interrupters (GFI's) Where Appropriate
The National Safety Council reports that about 1,000 people are electrocuted each year in the United States. OSHA specifies that all equipment in the workplace be grounded to avoid shock and possible electrocution.
Safety Tip
Remove All Electrical Connections From Inside Chemical Refrigerators and Require Magnetic Closures
Standard refrigerators should not be used for storage of flammable or reactive chemicals. Electrical connections within the refrigerator can be an ignition source for flammable vapors.
Safety Tip
Provide an Appropriate Supply of First Aid Equipment and Instruction on Its Proper Use
There are some emergencies which can't wait five minutes for EMTs to arrive. Severe bleeding is one of these.
Safety Tip
Provide Guards on All Vacuum Pumps and Secure All Compressed Gas Cylinders
A missing or broken vacuum pump guard is one of the most common OSHA violations. Whenever a pulley/belt assembly is within reach, there needs to be an enclosure to prevent fingers, hair, or clothing from being caught.
Safety Tip
Maintain a Centrally Located Departmental Safety Library
One of the characteristics of an effective safety program is the availability of reference and resource materials. Employees need to have easy access to this information.
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