Chemical Toolkit

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE
PROGRAMME ON SAFETY AND HEALTH AT WORK AND THE ENVIRONMENT

SAFEWORK

INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL CONTROL TOOLKIT

Draft Guidelines
SafeWork welcomes feedback to further improve this draft. Please send your comment to us by email at safework@ilo.org or by mail at the address at the bottom left of this page.

International Labour Office 4 route des Morillons1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland

http://www.ilo.org/safework

Foreword
The present guidelines outline a scheme for a Workplace Chemicals Control Tool Kit (CCTK) designed for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. It has been developed by a team of occupational hygienists assembled by the International Occupational Hygiene Association (IOHA) with representatives fromGreat Britain, USA, Australia, Southern Africa and Asia. The COSHH Essentials1, developed by the United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to facilitate small business compliance with the UK regulations on control of substances hazardous to health, have been used as a model for developing the CCTK). It is important to note that this document presents a preliminary version of theGuidelines and that additional work is being undertaken by a group of international experts to test and validate the proposed control measures and the selection procedure. The Guidelines should therefore be considered as a model to be improved and should be used with caution. The secretariat for the team of experts has been provided by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in Great Britain. The teamincluded the following experts: Steve Maidment (HSE/BIOH, UK); Noel Tresider (AIOH, South Africa); Rob Ferries (AIOH, South Africa); Richard Gillis (AIOH, representing South East Asia employers); Jerry Lynch (AIHA, USA); Carole Sullilvan (HSE, UK Secretariat); Isaac Obadia (ILO SafeWork) The main target audience was identified as requiring simple and practical guidance on how to prevent andreduce the risks from chemicals at work. A generic risk assessment based on the Globally Harmonised System for the Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS)2 defined exposure conditions has been developed to lead the user to an appropriate approach to control. This approach to control, supported by a series of task guidance sheets is believed to offer a simple and practical means of achievingthe objective. To facilitate translation of the toolkit into many languages, the task guidance sheets have been developed using a glossary. The Tool Kit is designed to identify control solutions that provide health protection for the large majority of the working population . However, within any population there will be susceptible groups of individuals such as young and aged workers, as wellas child bearing age orpregnant women who may require additional protection when exposed to specific hazardous materials. For these susceptible groups a more precautionary approach may be prudent and contact with hazardous substance of concern either avoided or a greater degree of control provided. This additional control could be provided by adopting a more rigorous control approach that thestandard recommendation from the Tool Kit. Whilst primarily developed for the workplace control of risks to health from airborne contaminants arising from the handling of supplied chemicals, it is recognised that chemicals can also present a risk to safety (fire and explosion) and a risk to the environment. The toolkit has been developed to provide basic advice on the control of these additionalrisks, but would benefit from future development work in these areas. Because of the widespread use of pesticides in developing countries, the toolkit includes a direct link from pesticide use to a series of pesticide task guidance sheets, avoiding the use of the risk assessment scheme for these chemical. This should greatly simplify the operation of the toolkit for pesticide users.

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