How to Be Proactive About Workplace Safety in the Chemical Industry

Chemical manufacturing is inherently dangerous. Therefore, safety can never be compromised. It’s imperative that everyone involved understand and practice appropriate safety procedures. Employee health, production efficiency, and sustainability all depend on it.

Fortunately, practicing workplace safety in the chemical industry is not an unknown. Industry players have combined efforts over the decades do come up with safety standards any chemical manufacturer can implement. Combined with appropriate regulations, the standards mitigate risk for the safest workplace possible.

Risk Assessment and Management

The foundation of workplace safety in chemical manufacturing is risk assessment and management. Mitigating risk requires first understanding what a company is facing. To that end, regular risk assessments are intended to identify potential hazards related to chemical handling, storage, and use.

Conducting risk assessments helps employees better understand their own risks. It motivates them to implement appropriate control measures and safety procedures. And when every employee practices the safety-first mindset, risk is managed accordingly.

6 Key Elements of Workplace Safety

With risk assessment and management as the foundation, workplace safety in the chemical industry is then built on six key elements. Each of these elements plays a significant role in the overall safety landscape, but the extent of each one’s role can be different from one environment to the next. The six elements are:

1. Training and Education

The first element is arguably the most important: training and education. Employees cannot properly handle, use, and store dangerous chemicals if they don’t know how. They cannot follow policies and procedures they have never been taught. Therefore, safety training and education must be a top priority. It should include training in:

• Proper procedures for handling, storing, and disposing of chemicals.
• Safety data sheets and how to use them properly.
• Emergency response protocols and policies.

To the extent employees have been trained, they can work safely. Training should be ongoing and scheduled on a regular basis.

2. Handling and Storage Policies

A safe work environment is one that is maintained by clearly written and implemented policies. Those pertaining to chemical handling and storage directly contribute to a safe work environment. Policies should address, among other things:

• Designated storage areas identified with clear labelling.
• Keeping storage areas free of clutter and ignition sources.
• Practicing incompatible chemical segregation.

Storage and handling policies are not necessarily permanent. They may have to be modified to accommodate changes in chemical inventories and operational procedures.

3. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Chemical manufacturing often requires the use of PPE among exposed employees. Typical PPE includes safety glasses or goggles, noise cancelling headphones, gloves and protective clothing, respirators, and fall protection equipment. Employees need to know what equipment is available to them and how to use it properly.

4. Clear and Open Communication

Clear and open communication is important in any workplace. But it is critical in chemical manufacturing due to the inherent nature of the business. For example, chemical hazard communication dictates maintaining an up-to-date list of all hazardous chemicals in the workplace. Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) should be made readily available.

5. Regulatory Compliance

Regulations are put in place to protect workers and visitors. Therefore, compliance is a safety issue. Chemical manufacturers owe it to their employees and communities to ensure workers are always complying with regulations. The companies themselves need to be complying as well.

6. Emergency Preparedness

The sixth element, emergency preparedness, is required because there is no such thing as a perfect work environment. As hard as a company might work to ensure workplace safety, an accident is bound to happen at some point. And when it does, employees need to know how to respond. Training them in emergency preparedness is as critical as training in the proper use, storage, and handling of dangerous chemicals.

Always Room for Improvement

Safety regulations are built into chemical manufacturing. But sometimes, regulations are not enough to ensure a safe and productive workplace. The truth is that there is always room for improvement. What does this mean practically? It means chemical manufacturers should never be content to rest on today’s safety procedures and policies. They should continually look for ways to make the workplace safer.

For example, the safety team could look at current storage options and their inherent weaknesses. They could explore new options to make chemical storage safer. If there is a way to improve something the company is already doing, such improvements should be given serious consideration.

Striving for improvement includes conducting regular safety and risk assessments, which brings us back to the first point of this post. It illustrates that safety is cyclical. It is an ongoing series of intentional actions that continue to repeat over time. As the cycle is repeated, the workplace gets safer.

No Room for Compromise

Chemical manufacturing’s inherent danger mandates a safety-first mindset that starts in the executive suite and filters all the way down to the floor. There is no room for compromise. What executives model to production workers is what actually occurs at the production level. Put another way, safety starts at the top. It is proactive, consistent, and always improving.