Recent EHS Incident Responses with Common Themes
Learn more about recent incidents with recurring themes.
Unattended Experiments: What's the Hazard?
Ever need to leave your reaction running through the night while you're getting your beauty rest?
Document-Linked - Lab Safety Manual
Document describing requirements and responsibilities for chemical safety training, use, storage, disposal, and emergency response
Document - Chem RTP Plan
Document describing roles and responsibilities relating to the Right to Know program
Document - Lab Safety Manual PDF
Document describing requirements and responsibilities for chemical safety training, use, storage, disposal, and emergency response
Document - Chem Dangerous Gas
Document detailing the requirements and responsibilities relating to the dangerous gas safety program
Finger Tight Only
When a partially used chemical container is put away we want to protect what is left and want to keep vapors from escaping. Many attempt to accomplish this by tightening the cap as tight as possible. This doesn’t really work. Overtightening can damage the top to the point of failure – leading to escape of the material we’ve had a number of recent incidents where this has led to spills and exposure.
Crossing Waste Streams
On Thursday, February 5, in the College of Computing, a Teaching Assistant poured some excess nitric acid into a solvent waste bottle, producing a potentially dangerous and explosive mixture. The mixture lived up to its potential. Luckily, the reaction takes some time to occur and the lab was empty when the explosion took place – anyone in the lab at the time would very likely been seriously injured – glass shards and other debris were hurled at least 34 feet from the fume hood. As it was there were several thousand dollars of damage.
Lab Safety Training Now Online
Our basic lab safety training has gone electronic! The once-classroom-taught class is now in an electronic version (entitled Lab Safety 101) allowing end-users to complete the training on their own time.