Having spent some time in a materials evaluation laboratory, I appreciate the value of the material safety data sheet (MSDS).  Without it, you have no idea what potential hazards are presented by a given substance. Even worse, you have no idea how to safely handle a given material.  With the MSDS you can take appropriate Read More

You know your safety department keeps nagging you to properly store your chemicals. Unfortunately, if everyone follows their advice then they tend to take safety for granted.  It’s not until there’s an accident that safety suddenly returns to the forefront of people’s minds.  The best you can hope for is that it’s someone else’s mistake Read More

When I first started as a new employee at a high-tech firm thirty years or so ago, one of the first training sessions I had was based on a series of videos by a professor from the Unviersity of Texas.  He was talking about how human personality is formed by about the age of 5, Read More

Maintaining laboratory safety can be a full-time job, leaving little time to actually get work done.  That’s why you have a safety organization associated with your institution.  If your institution is the University of Montana, you can easily get an idea of how much work they’re saving you by reading this section of their environmental Read More

Campus safety organizations are faced with a daunting task.  The magnitude of that task is highlighted in a web page from the University of Utah (inspired by a similar site at Duke University): “Considering the turnover of students who must be taught to handle toxic, flammable and explosive compounds often under abnormal conditions of temperature Read More

Back in the dark ages, lab workers labored in ignorance, slopping solvents, acids, and bases around with abandon. Then the age of enlightenment arrived, and the lab workers obtained the information they needed to keep themselves and their coworkers safe.  The vehicle for this enlightenment was the Material Safety Data Sheet, the MSDS.  Unfortunately, the Read More

  If you’ve seen any of our earlier posts about {flammable storage refrigerators}, you know how important it is to store flammable compounds in the right refrigerator. Flammables kept in conventional refrigerators create a hazardous situation where fire or explosion can damage facilities and injure personnel.  Why are flammable storage refrigerators safer?  The Fall 2011 Read More