Are your suppliers’ data sheets good enough for COSHH?
It seems straightforward, you have looked at the materials safety data sheet, nothing is declared, the material must be safe – or is it?
The obligations on suppliers in respect to data sheets are less demanding than you might expect. All sorts of nasties might be concealed in a product provided that the concentration of each individual substance does not exceed the relevant threshold for declaration on the data sheet. Often data sheets reveal little or nothing about the substances that may be present in the materials that you are regularly handling in the work place. If work with these materials generates complaints of symptoms such as cough, runny nose, nausea or headache or of unbearable odour, it can be difficult to track down the potential cause of the problem. GC-MS (gas chromatography with mass spectrometry) is a powerful tool in the identification and quantification of unknown volatile substances present in air. It can be used to pin down the nature of a solvent mix that is giving rise to respiratory irritation associated with a specific work task or to identify volatile substances in indoor air where there have been complaints of malodour, respiratory irritation or other symptoms of sick building syndrome.
We have recently upgraded our GC-MS system to enable us to better quantify the substances identified during investigative work. We are now able to directly link the outcome of a GC-MS scan undertaken to identify the nature of volatiles present in air with quantification of the concentrations of volatiles present. This has greatly enhanced our capability to provide useful information to solve those difficult “exposed to what?” cases.