- Date: 19 August 2024
- Category: Safety, Waste Management
Direct365 know a lot about how to run a successful small business, but we also know a lot about the ins and outs of dealing with regulations. Safety and waste are our bread and butter. When it comes to safety, one type of hazardous material that almost every organisation will have somewhere is some form of hazardous chemical. Whether you’re an office space on a business park, or a factory on an industrial site, you will have some chemicals on your property. And with this being the case, there’s a lot you need to do to ensure the safe keeping of the chemicals you use and store. Many businesses don’t know a lot about hazardous chemicals in the workplace, so that’s why we’re dedicating an entire blog to helping you understand what you need to do.
Now, before you move on, you may well think that what’s on your premises can’t be described as hazardous. But the term chemical is vast ranging. It can be cleaning products or car oil, but it can be stone or wood dust. A hazardous substance is classified as anything that can cause harm.
And with that, we’ll firstly discuss exactly why you need to carefully store these items, starting with legislation. Nobody wants to break the law, so understanding the law can give you a greater understanding of how the whole thing works.
Regulation for Supplying and Storing Chemicals in a Workplace
There are a number of pieces of legislation that are important when talking about using, supplying and storing chemicals. We talk through the ones that may matter more to small businesses in more detail below:
COSHH
COSHH, or the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, is the legislation that requires businesses to ensure hazardous substances are kept in a safe place, avoiding causing health issues. The hazards don’t need to be purely ingestion. In fact, many of the health problems can be longer-term, such as asthma and even cancer. COSHH states that organisations must ensure they reduce risk to the minimum level of exposure possible.
COSHH is a risk assessment that must be done on a yearly basis. You must think about who and how they can be affected, how you can control to risks and who and where this action needs to be taken.
COPR
This may be a slightly less heard of regulation than COSHH but it’s just as important if you deal with pesticides. COPR stands for Control of Pesticides Regulations, and is applied of by form acquired from the HSE directly by email.
COPR is any pesticide substance that is used that may harm people or wildlife outside of the remit originally intended. The intention is to ensure that the chemical is used as intended initially.
DSEAR
DSEAR stands for Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations. This regulation states that organisations need to take sufficient steps to protect employees and the general public from risks that may result in explosions or other dangerous reactions from substances.
This regulation states that employers must put plans in place to control and minimise risk of dangerous substances. This includes correct record keeping, education of employees and constantly assessing risk. You can find out more here.
UK REACH
UK REACH (standing for registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals) is a regulation that enforces those handling chemicals to provide a high level of protection for human health and the environment from the use of chemicals. This regulation is mainly for those who manufacture chemical substances. This regulation is separate from EU REACH, where both regulations must be abided by if necessary.
The main aim for this set of laws is to hold manufacturers to a high safety standard when making things for the UK market. Duties under these legislations are to ensure the management of risk in substances by those that make them, providing demonstratable instructions on how to use them safely. For further information, see the HSE REACH page here.
Disposing of Chemicals
As well as storing and using chemicals, there is legislation in relation to disposing of hazardous waste too. First of all, you need to assess the risk of disposing of hazardous waste within your organisation. Secondly, you must use a waste contractor who is legally certified to carry and dispose of hazardous waste. A company like Direct365.
We have been disposing of hazardous waste correctly for 20 years. To speak to a member of our staff about arranging a quote for hazardous waste, look no further than the form below, or for more details call 0800 612 9688.