Safety, health, and environmental regulations impact all types and sizes of printing operations.
Safety, health, and environmental regulations impact all types and sizes of printing operations. This is a very basic tenet. If you’re in the industrial marketplace, the issues that in your own backyard are often compounded by those on an international level. Rather than provide you with the basic regulatory primer, let’s just be realistic and state that all safety and health regulations impact your facility, regardless of product specialty or size of facility.
The regulations issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) do not exempt any manufacturing facility based on size of operation. Environmental regulations are a bit different. Your obligation does differ based on location, size of facility, type of chemicals used, and other factors. While attention generally focuses on air emissions, environmental regulations do not just focus on air, but waste and water as well. The following offers highlights of the most often missed regulatory standards for safety, health, and environment, as well as a few insights regarding upcoming regulatory initiatives.
Hazard-communication standard
Even well into its third decade, OSHA’s Hazard Communication (HazComm) Standard remains in the top ten OSHA violations year after year. The required elements are rather straightforward: compile and maintain copies of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) of those hazardous substances used in the workplace; train employees regarding the use and handling of these substances on a regular basis; maintain an in-plant labeling system; develop a written hazard-communication program; and maintain a list of all hazardous substances found in your facility. If you have hazardous chemicals in the workplace and are a manufacturing facility, then you are required to have the elements of a Hazard Communication Program in place.
OSHA has proposed changes to this standard to align more closely with the Global Harmonization System. Under the proposed changes, all MSDSs would be required to follow the same format, and labels would also be required to use pictograms in addition to words. The majority of the proposed changes would impact the chemical-supply community; however, there will be new requirements for in-plant labeling systems and training components. It is anticipated that the new regulation will be issued at some point in 2011.
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