quantity can be expressed by a hazard rating factor of 10 in each case:
Quantity Up to 10g/ml
10g/ml to 1kg/litre More than 1kg/litre
Hazard Rating 1
10 100
2.Physical form of the substance. Identifying the physical form of the substance being assessed is important, as a dense solid is less likely to be less hazardous to health than fine dust. Each different physical characteristic can be expressed again by a hazard rating factor of 10 as follows:
Physical characteristic
Dense solids Non-volatile liquids
Coarse dusts Volatile liquids
Gases Highly volatile liquids Aerosols
Fine dusts
3.Containment of the substance. The containment of a substance in storage and use can vary depending on the substance and activity. Some activities are inherently better at containing a hazardous substance/s than others. The variation in containment and the associated exposure hazard rating can be expressed by a factor of 10 as follows:
Containment characteristics
Essentially closed system, where the likelihood of any significant release is very small
Partially open system where, either by design or by failure of containment known to be
Essentially open system or high known incidence of containment failure, leading to significant release of hazardous substance
Containment Hazard description
rating
Closed system
inherent in the activity, there is likely to be a open 10 limited release of hazardous substance
Partially system
Open System 100 Calculating the Overall Exposure Potential can be carried out thus:
“Quantity” x “Physical Form” x “Containment”, the sum of which can be used against the table below to give an overall rating
Exposure Potential Low
Medium High
Less than or equal to 100 1000
Equal to or greater than 10,000
4.Damage potential. Finally, we need to categorise the damage potential of the substance and this is where the Manufacturer’s Safety Data Sheet comes in handy. Manufacturers have a great deal of knowledge about the hazardous properties of the substances they supply, and a substance will often be given a “CHIP” classification characterised by the hazard symbols found on a label.
For a full list of and description of the CHIP symbols, along with a full list of risk phrases and safety phrases, visit the HSE site at
http://www.hse.gov.uk/chip/phrases.htm Some products may contain more that one CHIP category, in which case for the purposes of making a calculated assessment you need to assess the substance within a product that has the highest CHIP rating:
Damage potential Type of hazardous property
Very High (VH) Potent carcinogens or toxins, Occupational Exposure Standard(OES) of
High (H) Medium (M) Low (L) 96
Substances classified under "CHIP" as harmful, irritant, OES of 10-500ppm (50-500mg/m-3
)
Substances not meeting the "CHIP" classification criteria, OES of >500ppm (>2500mg/m-3
) )
Substances classified under "CHIP" as toxic, very toxic, corrosive, OES of 0.1 - 10ppm (0.5-50mg/m-3
) 1
Hazard description Low hazard
Medium hazard High hazard
Hazard rating 1
10 100
Damage Potential
Having identified the overall exposure and damage potential, the risk of damage from the combination of the two can now be be expressed numerically between 1 and 3 from the table below, and used as guidance on what controls are required to reduce any risks to health and the environment involved with using the assessed substance:
VH 23 3 H
M L
1-2 1 1 L
If the risk of damage is:
1. The activity is probably safe to continue without changes, consider the need for appropriate personal protective equipment where accidental exposure may occur.
2. Action required to reduce the risk. Select personal protective equipment as a short term solution while investigating other long term solutions.
1/2. Action may be required to reduce the risk. Consider carefully the factors that have the potential to damage health and/or levels of exposure, and look at ways to control the risks further. Decide if the weighting is towards the Low or High category and act to reduce the risks accordingly.
3. Take immediate action to reduce the risk. Consider changes to the control measures that need to be made to bring the risk rating down to an acceptable level. Activities may need to be suspended until adequate controls have been established.
Putting this into practice
There are many forms out there, from the very
complicated to the very simple. For more details and a greater in depth look at COSHH Assessments, including some sample forms, take a look at the HSE COSHH
assessments page at
http://www.hse.gov.uk/COSHH/index.htm Some parts of your COSHH assessment may require you to then look at how you control your handling of the substance, the PPE that you specify and, more importantly, if you have considered the substitution of a substance with less risk attached to it.
In Summary
Remember, I stated earlier that you do not need to rush in and do all your assessments at once, and that is true. If you have completed an inventory of all the products that you use then you will, no doubt, have some idea of the ones that you use that concern you the most, some that you use more often than others and those that you have noticed that have a great big skull and crossbones on the label, which indicates to you that it needs particular care in use.
Those are the ones that you will need to concentrate on first, and then migrate on to the rest as and when they come up for use. If you can complete just one assessment this week it will be a start, then do another next week or a couple the week after, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly they build. I hope that this has given you an insight into how you might carry out an assessment of your own. Personally, I devote the first Tuesday of each month to carrying out my assessments and you know, they don’t seem such a hard thing to accomplish.
Malcolm Gardner, Grounds Manager, BA Clubs 2
1-2 1
M
3 2
1-2 H
Overall Exposure Potential
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132